


The Love You're Given

by Teardropfires



Category: Glee
Genre: Canon Compliant, Future Fic, Infidelity, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 10:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5086975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teardropfires/pseuds/Teardropfires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt and Blaine have been somewhat happily married for almost 16 years. They have a beautiful six year old daughter, they have great friends, a nice home in the city, and Kurt has a job that he loves.  After an embarrassing flop from his first attempt as a solo act on Broadway, Blaine starts teaching at a few of the universities and has made the family move further from the theater district, much to Kurt's dismay. Kurt continues to work his way through the community separate from Blaine, but has always been reluctant to take on major roles in order to keep the peace with his husband. After a drunken night of writing, Kurt and Rachel create the start of a promising new musical that has them all excited. When it gets up and running and  receives some positive buzz, it puts a strain on an already rocky marriage. But one Sebastian Smythe, fresh off a nervous breakdown, threatens to knock it over the final edge when Jesse hires him as the producer. Kurt tries to save his marriage, be a good father, have a successful career, and find happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Love You're Given

**Author's Note:**

> I have to thank one of my favorite people ever, my beta Lari! She's always so patient and honest! Thank you!  
> And how awesome is this artwork by captainsarasmiles?!?!? More from her here! http://captainsarasmiles.tumblr.com/  
> I sincerely hope you guys like this one. It started off as a small little thing, and in true teardrop fashion, spiraled out of control.

 

Pain explodes behind Kurt’s eyes as the alarm blares into life. Groaning, he buries his head deep into the mess of pillows. He feels a heavy weight lean over him and he grunts, prepared to push it off when the raucous noise silences and he sighs, relieved, further into the mattress.  A soft voice chuckles above him. He feels a light brush of lips against the back of his neck before the weight lessens and the bed dips at his side.

“You and Rachel have fun last night?” Blaine asks next to him.  He grunts his reply. Blaine laughs a little louder this time and Kurt pulls his head up to glare. Blaine just shrugs as he gets up from the bed. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who stayed out well into the night. And knowing Rachel, I’m sure several bottles of wine were involved.” Kurt sighs and turns over on his back as he tracks Blaine around the room with his eyes.

“Why are you up so early,” Kurt asks and he cringes slightly at the hoarseness of his voice. Blaine huffs out another laugh before he steps into their closet. His reply comes back muffled and Kurt struggles as he sits up, hoping that’ll help him hear. “Say that again.”

“I said,” Blaine starts, coming out of the closet with a shirt, tie, and pants combo, “That the cushy life of a Broadway actor has made you soft. Eight is quite the normal start time for us common folk.”

“Well, I seem to remember you being very fond of your new schedule,” Kurt says and crawls from under the covers to the foot of the bed where Blaine is. “But if the daily-grind of the teaching life has gotten too hard for you,” he pauses to lean in and kiss Blaine’s neck, “Perhaps you can be persuaded back over to the dark side.” He grins against his skin and trails his nose against Blaine’s jaw line.

“Of Unemployment? Some of us have to live in the real world. Might as well be me, right?” Blaine says and pulls away from Kurt’s touch. Kurt frowns at the loss of contact and at the slight dig at his current job status, but tries to cover it up by rubbing sleepily at his face.

“Well, the real world is overrated from what I remember,” he says playfully. “Plus my show ended two weeks ago, I feel like I’m due for a break after months of eight performances a week.” Blaine grunts his acknowledgement and continues to put on his clothes. At a loss for what to say, Kurt takes a deep breath and stands to leave the awkward silence of the bedroom. He travels down the hall and peaks his head in the tastefully decorated room of his daughter. He can’t help but smile as he walks further into the room and sees her sleeping form. He stoops down next to her and softly brushes the hair back from her face.

“Ellie,” he says in a hush tone as he moves his hand to pat her back soothingly. She stirs lightly as Kurt continues to coax her out of sleep. She opens up one eye, finally, and looks up at him, pouting slightly. Kurt bites back a laugh and leans in to kiss her cheek. “I know baby. Come on, get up. Time for breakfast!” He pulls back her blanket and helps her sit up.

“Can I have the butterfly plate?” She mumbles, rubbing her eyes.

“Of course you can,” He says and then points at the clock in her room. “Alright, remember what we said about time?” He waits for her to nod and then holds up his hands displaying all ten fingers. “So breakfast is going to be ready in 10 minutes. Got it?”

He smiles as he turns to leave, giving one more look to his daughter staring seriously at the clock. He walks past his bedroom and glances in to see Blaine smiling at something on his phone. He’ll blame the slight uneasiness the sight causes on his current state of hangover.

In the kitchen, he busies himself with putting on the teakettle and sets up the French press. As the water boils he pops some toast into the toaster and gets some cream cheese and fruit from the refrigerator. He has the toast cut, the cheese spread and the fruit cut into tiny, manageable pieces on the preferred butterfly plate – an amorphous yellow blob of Ellie’s own creation—sitting on the table by the time the coffee is ready. He pours it into a mug and sighs in relief after his first sip. He groans as he sits down at the table, mug in one hand and his forehead resting in the other and wills his head to stop hurting on its own.

Ellie comes in then, still looking sleep mussed, and Kurt can’t help the smile that forms on his lips as she clumsily climbs onto the chair where her food is.

“Thanks Daddy,” she says softly as she settles in.

Kurt leans over to kiss her head. He whispers a soft, “Of course, sweetie,” against her hair before he straightens. On days like this, groggy and hung over, he relishes in the quietness of their morning routines. Ellie, normally vibrant and bubbly, if not a little loud, is sleepy and pliant in the morning and thankfully not up for talking her dad’s ear off.

His mind drifts back to his bedroom, where his stoic husband is getting dressed for a job he claims to love. They’re life had been so different when Blaine was performing. A day like today would have included some snuggles, some heavy petting, and if given a cup of coffee and some ibuprofen beforehand, maybe even a round of lazy morning sex. They used to make meals as a team, and eat as a family.

Kurt sighs and takes a deep sip of coffee. Maybe he can talk Blaine into working again. He snaps out of his thoughts as Blaine walks in and zeros in on the coffee. Kurt watches him as he pours himself some in a to-go cup.

“Why don’t you come eat breakfast with us,” Kurt says hopefully. Blaine laughs a little and points to their daughter’s plate. “You mean Ellie.”

“Coffee is the breakfast of champions.” Kurt says, brandishing his cup carefully. Then he looks down at his daughter. “For adult champions.”

She frowns, which makes Kurt laugh lightly. Blaine grabs a piece of toast and comes to ruffle her hair, making her frown deepen, and then leans down to kiss her cheek.

“Don’t try to grow up too fast, pumpkin.” He looks over to Kurt and smiles. “Gotta go. Early meeting.“

“Just for toast,” Kurt says and pulls him in by his collar. He leans in and kisses his lips softly. “Please.” Blaine huffs out another soft laugh and nods. He stands and goes to sit on the other side of Ellie.

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Well Kurt sits in silence, watching Blaine try and engage in conversation with a quite cranky Ellie. Kurt clears his throat and looks down at his mug. “So Blaine, Julia called me the other day.”

Blaine looks up and narrows his eyes. “Okay…?”

Kurt takes a sip of coffee before he answers. “And her and Tom are work-shopping a new show, and I think you should do it.”

Blaine puts down the rest of his toast on Ellie’s plate and crosses his arms. “Julia asked for me?”

“Um well, she sent me the book, but I told her I think you’d be better suited for the role,” Kurt starts but Blaine’s already standing to leave. “You should at least call her.”

“Why, Kurt?” Blaine says, frustrated. He picks up his coffee cup. “They didn’t want me, they wanted you. I’d hate to disappoint your adoring fan club.” He says with a roll of his eyes.

“Blaine that’s not fair,” Kurt says, choosing to not take offense to what was just said. “You know they love you. A lot of people want to see you back on stag—“

“And why are you talking to people about new roles, Kurt?” Blaine cuts in. “We agreed that you were going to take a break. I believe it was _you_ who said we need to focus on _us_.”

Kurt darts a look to their daughter who is frowning up at Blaine. He sighs and reaches out to run his hand through Ellie’s hair and get her attention back on her breakfast. “It’s just a workshop Blaine, and I didn’t accept it, I wasn’t even planning on it. It came up, and the script looked like something you’d be interested in. That’s it. And as for other things,” He says looking pointedly from Blaine to Ellie. “We’ll talk about that later.”

Blaine just sighs and walks out of the kitchen. “I’ll probably be home late.” He calls from the other room and shortly after that, Kurt can hear the sound of the door opening then closing.

Kurt stares at the entrance and sighs heavily.

“Papa didn’t finish his toast.” Ellie says and hands the half eaten piece of bread out to Kurt. He sighs again and sits it down on the table, and as though she senses his distress, Ellie gets up from her chair and climbs into Kurt’s lap. She leans her head on his chest and rubs a tiny yet soothing hand at the part of his back she can reach and slowly nibbles on her own piece of toast in her other hand. Kurt smiles and kisses the top of her head. Kurt lets himself relish in this morning cuddle for a few more minutes before he downs the rest of his coffee and rubs consolingly at his daughter’s back.

“All right El, time for school,” He says before planting another kiss to her head. Still a little sleepy, she puts up very little fuss as they rush through their morning routine.

An hour later Kurt lets himself back into their apartment, ready to battle the rest of his hangover in a Netflix hole, and almost has a heart attack when Rachel pops up from behind his couch.

“There you are,” she says way too cheery for someone who drank just as much as he did less than 12 hours ago. “We need to talk about last night?”

Kurt sighs and puts his hand over his still rapidly beating heart. He plops down next to her, taking a second to admire the two-year-old playing happily at her mom’s feet.

“How about we do less talking and more sleeping,” he says, sinking into the couch, and then looks at her sharply, “Unless you’d like to talk about your key privileges.”

“Kurt, this _is_ an emergency,” she says and then reaches into her bag and grabs a few loose sheets of paper and hands it to him excitedly. “Look at this!”

“Okay, okay,” Kurt says, knowing her well enough not to argue with her at this stage of bossy. Kurt scans over the pages and slowly, bits of lines start to jump out him in the jumbled mess of his and hers alternating handwriting. “What is this?”

“It’s our show,” She says softly, almost reverently. “Look,” she says and pulls a page from the back and puts it in his face. He’s truly curious which is the only thing stopping him from snapping at her pushiness. “It’s our story.”

“We wrote this last night?” Kurt asks and then lets out a surprised laugh. “How drunk were we?”

“I say we recreate the moment of inspiration!” She says excitedly and reaches back into her bag and pulls out two bottles of vodka that makes Kurt‘s stomach instantly turn over as she waves them in his face.

“First, god no. Put that away,” he says batting the bottles away. “Second, it’s not even 10 yet. And!” He says and leans down to pick Esther who is just starting to become interested in the expensive flower vase on the coffee table. He hugs her against his chest and smiles at the small release of giggles he gets for it. “Who’s going to watch this little one if we get wasted?”

Rachel looks disappointed and tucks the bottles back away into her bag. After a few seconds she brightens again and practically skips over to the piano in the corner. She mutters something to herself as she stares down at the keys.

“Esther, promise me you won’t grow up deranged like mommy.” Rachel glares at him briefly before she starts to play a soft melody. She closes her eyes, deep in thought and then the melody starts to build upon itself. 

Kurt can’t help but enjoy it as he sways from side-to-side with Esther who seems to be just as impressed by her mom, if the rare stillness is anything to go by. Without even thinking about it, Kurt glances over to the pages of notes. His hand reaches out at random for one of the pages and he digs in Rachel’s bag for a pen, as pieces of words become clear to him. He writes out a messy score next to a section of the notes and then starts to hum along softly.  Before he realizes it he’s singing an unknown melody in time with Rachel’s playing and she joins in with a harmonizing hum and then slowly stops into silence.

“Oh my god,” Kurt says, breaking the stillness of the room. He looks up from the notes to her and sees her nodding her head frantically. “I think you’re right.”

“I know!” She exclaims, making Esther jump. “Okay. Let’s finish the outline and then get straight into writing more melodies.”

“What?” Kurt says and then starts to shake his head and sits Esther back on the floor. “No, no. Rachel I’m not doing this. I know that look, and—“

“What look?” Rachel says, eyes wide and a little wild as she reaches down and clutches one of the pages close to her chest.

“That look,” Kurt says and then looks down at the pages. He picks one of them up and looks over it carefully. “This is really promising Rachel, but…”

“Kurt,” Rachel says softly. She sits down next to him and puts a hand on his knee and squeezes tightly. “What’s going on?”

It’s moments like these when he remembers why she’s his best friend. He leans his head on the back of his couch and sighs heavily. “I told Blaine I wouldn’t work for a while.”

“What?” She says loudly. “Why would you do that?”

“Please stop yelling,” Kurt says rubbing his head. “And I’m trying to… I don’t know. Save my marriage I guess.”

Rachel looks at him confused. “I’m confused.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I thought you guys were fine after the move,” Rachel asks softly.

“We are,” Kurt says and shakes his head, “I’m probably looking too far into it.”

Rachel gives him an unimpressed look and he sighs again and stares up at the ceiling. “It just hasn’t really been the same since his show. And… I don’t know I feel like-”

“Kurt,” Rachel says, cutting him off. “The Blaine I know and love would never want you to stop living your dream for anything, let alone his hurt pride.”

“Yeah,” he says softly.

“And listen,” Rachel continues. “You don’t have to do anything but help write it if you don’t want to. But I feel like if anything is going to welcome me back to the stage after my previously agreed three year maternity hiatus,” she says and gives her daughter a smiling glance. “It’s this. And I want to write it with my best friend!”

Kurt huffs out a laugh. “Rachel I’ve never even written a show before.”

“Look at this,” She says and picks up the page that Kurt had started to write music on. “Try again.”

“Rachel-”

“Kurt, we can do this!” She says, and she looks so goddamn hopeful, Kurt can practically feel his defense crumbling under her gaze. He takes the page from her hand and sighs.

“I’m going to regret this,” he says and cringes at her squeals of delight.

++

It takes them about a month to pound out the outline. They work during the day, while Ellie and Blaine are at work and school, and sometimes late at night over bottles of wine. A month blends into two as they start to build upon the story. One night Kurt is packing up his bag, ready to head home, when Rachel announces that she thinks it’s ready to be looked at.

He looks up at her, a little alarmed. “What? No!”

Rachel looks at him confused. “Why?”

“It’s not ready!” Kurt says, panic starting to course through his veins.

“No,” Rachel says slowly. “But it’s ready to be handed off. Now you don’t have to work so hard on it. I’ll talk to Jesse and see if he has –“

“I don’t want anyone else to write on it,” Kurt blurts out. Rachel bites down on a smile, which makes Kurt only want to punch her a little bit. He sighs and puts his head in his hands. “Fine. You were right. I want this.”

Rachel starts to squeal excitedly again. “But,” he says cutting her off.  “I need to tell Blaine about this first.”

Rachel frowns. “Kurt. He has to know something’s been up. We’ve been writing this for like ever.”

Kurt shrugs and continues to pack up his bag. “You’d think.”

++

It all comes to a messy head one night over dinner at Rachel and Jesse’s apartment. It starts with Jesse making some off hand comment about how long it took them to get over there, and it sets Blaine on edge from the beginning. Kurt tries to rectify the situation by gushing about the apartment they’ve been living in for almost a year now, and even though it’s farther away from work, it’s nicer and cheaper, and just oh-so-great. But Blaine doesn’t seem impressed with his efforts, and Rachel and Jesse know all to well how Kurt really feels about moving so far away from them. With the awkwardness of that conversation, they prep the dinner in a mostly silent fashion.

Jesse is reaching for some more plates when he suddenly turns to look at Kurt. “Oh hey, Kurt. I wanted to set up a meeting with you and Rachel about a timeline for the show.”

Kurt freezes then looks frantically at Rachel, who is staring at Jesse with an equally horrified expression. “What?”

Jesse looks at him confused as he sits down the plates. “When are you free for drinks this week? I’ve got a few ideas I want to run by you guys for casting. And I’ve talked to Eileen and she’s already willing to come on board. But she wants me to hire her nephew as a producer, which I’m like fine, whatever as long as you give me my money.” Jesse rambles on.

“Wait,” Blaine says slowly. They all turn to him. “Jesse you’re working on a new musical?”

Jesse frowns, but before he can answer Blaine turns to Kurt and points at Jesse. “And you’re helping him out with it?”

Jesse looks confused. “Well I should hope so. He wrote it.”

“I wrote it,” Rachel blurts out, as she stands awkwardly holding a tray of broccoli bites. “And, um, Kurt. Yeah, um Kurt helped.”

There is an awkward silence that settles over the room and Kurt finds a hard time trying to focus on one thing; the subtle anger radiating off of his husband, the look of mild panic on Rachel’s face as she looks from him to her husband, and Jesse who looks more confused than anything else.

“Jesse!” Rachel hisses out, apparently unable to handle the silence anymore. “I told you it was a secret.”

Jesse’s look of confusion deepens as he stares from her to Kurt and then to Blaine. “I didn’t think you meant from everyone. Hell it’s Blaine,” Jesse reasons. It’s a fair point, but it only stands to make things worse. Blaine sits his glass down hard and stares straight at Kurt.

“Yeah Kurt,” he says. The quiet rage from before rising as his voice gets louder. “Of all the people you’d conveniently forget to tell about a new project, it obviously wouldn’t have been your husband.”

“Blaine,” Kurt says, trying to keep calm. “It’s not a new project. It’s just a stupid little thing that Rachel and I wrote when we were drunk!”

“Hey!” Rachel protests loudly, still holding the tray of food. “It’s not stupid! It’s actually really great, Blaine.” She adds in a softer voice as she looks at him. “We were going to tell you guys once we had a better draft,” she says as she starts to make her way to the dining room table. “Jesse, just um, just found the copy I’d… um printed to start editing, and, yeah, saw it,” She finishes lamely. Kurt groans internally and closes his eyes against the building annoyance that he has for this situation. God bless Rachel for trying to fix the mess, but despite her being a highly successful actress, she’s a God-awful liar when put on the spot.

“Right,” Blaine says, completely unconvinced, and he turns back to Kurt ready to presumably confirm his belief that Rachel’s flimsy excuse was not good enough, when Ellie comes running into the room and announces loudly that her and Esther are “absolutely starving”. The adults look from each other and then to the clutter of food sitting on the counters and all at once start to grab things and start bringing it to the table.

Throughout dinner, Blaine doesn’t say anything to the adults unless asked a specific question, and even then he seems to be reluctant to answer anything and only engages in conversation with their daughter and Esther.

Kurt prays for time to slow, and push away the inevitable ride home. When Rachel announces that it’s time for dessert, Blaine and Ellie go off to help her leaving Kurt, Jesse, and Esther.

Jesse clears his throat awkwardly. “I’m sorry,” he says softly before glancing over his shoulder into the kitchen. “I was assuming that he knew. I didn’t mean to make it bad for you,” Jesse says and then looks back to him. Kurt stares at him for a few drawn out seconds. This man, long since the annoying boy who craved attention at every opportunity, is, above anything else, his friend. Kurt knows that. He nods, accepting his apology.

“It’s fine. I just don’t like to talk about new projects with him,” he shrugs and busies himself with examining his wine glass. “Less of a fight I guess.” He looks up to see Jesse opening his mouth to say something, looking very unhappy, but at that moment Rachel, Blaine and Elli come back into hearing range and start passing out pieces of cake. For the rest of the night Jesse stays quiet, and whenever Kurt looks his way, he’s frowning at Blaine.

Ellie’s fast asleep in Blaine’s arms by the time they start preparing to leave. Rachel pulls Kurt into a tight hug as they get to the door and whispers that she’s sorry. Kurt just kisses her cheek, and waves to them as he follows Blaine down the hallway.

The ride home is silent and awkward. Kurt can feel how tense Blaine is next to him. And he’s not really surprised when Ellie shifts uncomfortably against him. She wakes up briefly and glances up at Blaine and then over to him before she slowly climbs off of Blaine and into Kurt’s lap. She sighs contentedly as she snuggles against him, before falling asleep again. Kurt rocks her slowly and looks anywhere but at Blaine.

Once home, he takes extra time in changing Ellie into her pajamas and offers to read her bedtime story even though she is asleep before they’ve had a chance to pick something out.

He lingers around in the kitchen, putting on the kettle for some bedtime tea and when he starts to make a show of cleaning their already clean kitchen, Blaine comes in still dressed - over the charade.

“When the hell were you going to tell me, Kurt?” He says angrily.

“Blaine it’s not that big of a deal!” Kurt says staring down at the teapot. “It wasn’t even supposed to be a thing. It was just something Rachel and I did. It’s not even good.”

“It’s good enough for Jesse to want to workshop it!”

“That’s because Rachel-”

“Kurt!” Blaine says and hits a hand heavily on the counter. Kurt turns around to glare at him. “Don’t bullshit me. You and I both know Jesse isn’t doing this because of Rachel. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Blaine. You need to calm down. I didn’t … purposely not tell you. I-”

“Kurt, please stop lying to me. Show me some respect for God’s sake,” he says in a lower voice. He runs his hand through his hair. “You know what this means. You’ll always be gone, and I’ll be the one raising our little girl. _Again._ While you get to go out and live the dream, I’ll be here busting my ass, working just so we can live here.”

“Blaine, we moved here for your job! And you’re not the only one who contributes to this household,” Kurt says, his patience breaking and the urge to lash out and defend himself starts to bubble under his skin. “And I wrote it!  I’ll probably have a few weeks of intense edits and then a few things here and there!” He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself as he walks over to Blaine. “Blaine, I’m not going MIA. We agreed that I would take a break. I meant that.” Kurt leans close to him and kisses his cheek softly.

“You should have told me,” Blaine says turning to look at him.

“You’re right,” Kurt says, and leans in to kiss him again. “I’m sorry.”

He nudges Blaine’s face with his nose, trying to get him to look his way and settles for kissing at his neck before Blaine shrugs out of his hold and walks out, leaving Kurt alone in the kitchen.

Rachel and Jesse come over the next day for lunch while Blaine is at work, and Kurt stares at them from the doorway before he begrudgingly lets them in.

Rachel barely has time to apologize again, when Kurt cuts her off.

“Rachel, I think you guys should just do this without me,” he says and turns away from them. “I’ll help with edits when I can, but Blaine-”

“Is jealous,” Jesse cuts in.

Kurt becomes immediately defensive out of habit and he scoffs and waves him off. “No. He’s just, umm, concerned that I won’t be able to be here for Ellie.”

“Kurt, I love you, but that’s insane.” Rachel says. She grabs his hand and pulls him over to the couch and sits, then pulls him down to sit with her. “Jesse’s right. Things haven’t been the same since Hi-Ball. I know more than anyone how hard is to comeback from a flop like that and … Blaine’s been is his funk much longer than I was. Have you tried talking about it?”

“Listen guys, it’s fine,” Kurt says looking from her to Jesse who is still standing behind the couch. “Look we’ve had some issues with it, but it’s gotten better. He just wants us to focus on the family and he’s really trying to go full time at Columbia and Juilliard.”

“Kurt! Can you honestly look at me and tell me that you don’t love this musical,” Rachel says and grabs his hands and squeezes them tightly. “This is our baby. We created this. Us, me and you! Doesn’t that mean something to you?”

“Rachel, of course it does, but I can’t do this at the cost of my marriage,” Kurt says softly. It’s the first time he’s let himself really admit that they’re in trouble.

“Blaine will under stand.”

“Do you remember NYADA?”

“We aren’t children any more, Kurt! Blaine’s a big boy who should be able to handle that other people’s successes are not his failures!”

“Then why are we having this conversation, Rachel?” Kurt says looking at her sadly.

“Because deep down we know you want this as much as we do,” Jesse says. He reaches into his bag and hands over a piece of paper.

“What’s this?” Kurt says, looking down at a list of names.

“A list of people already interested in working on a project with the three of us attached to it,” Jesse says and leans over the couch. “Between the three of us, we have eleven Tony nominations and five wins. That’s not nothing, Kurt. We can do this.”

Kurt looks from Jesse, to Rachel, and then down to the list. It’s an impressive list that’s for sure. He can feel his brain start to plan the logistics of managing his time with Ellie and Blaine and the show.  He looks back to Rachel and sighs heavily. “Okay, fine. I’m in.”

+

They work throughout the day. Jesse only leaves briefly to pickup Ellie from school and Esther from her nanny, but apart from that, they work well into dinner and much to Ellie’s delight have to order pizza when it’s clear there won’t be time to cook anything. She’s equally excited to know she’s allowed to eat in the living room where they’ve taken up shop, and wanders around happily looking down at the papers littering the floor.

Jesse is at the piano, stumbling over some of the music that Rachel just rewrote, when the door swings open heavily making them all jump a little bit.

“Damnit, sorry,” Blaine says. “Kurt we really need to get that fixed. I thought you said you called the landlord?”

“I thought you said you spoke to her about it,” Kurt said looking back on his stack of papers.

“Why would I have said that?”

“Because you’re the one who can’t seem to open the door?” Kurt says getting annoyed. “It works fine for everyone else.”

“Well seeing as you have more time on your hands maybe you can take care of that,” Blaine says and walks into their bedroom.

“Hi Blaine. Bye Blaine,” Rachel says frowning towards the direction of the bedroom.

Kurt sighs and looks up at her. “Sorry Rach. He probably had a bad day with some of his kids.”

“Daddy. You always says that you should treat people nicely because you never know where they’re going to!” Ellie says matter-of-factly.

“What they’re going _through_ , sweetie, and you’re right,” Kurt says distractedly, then looks to the mess of papers again. “Wait, where is the new page 18? Jesse?”

Jesse looks through his pages and stands from the piano to walk over and hand it to Kurt. “Hey Ellie, maybe you should remind Papa of that little lesson,” Jesse says as he ruffles her hair as he passes.

“What little lesson?” Blaine asks coming out of the bedroom with a change of clothes.

“That you should be ni-”

Jesse reaches out quickly and puts his hand over her mouth then pulls her into his lap.

“Not worried,” Rachel says hastily. “You should be not worried.”

Jesse moves his hands over Ellie’s mouth making it look like she’s nodding her head causing her to go into a fit of giggles. Kurt sighs and shakes his head but can’t help but spare a smile for his sweet girl.

“Oh yeah, worried about what?” Blaine says crossing his arms and leans his hip against the couch.

Ellie’s answer is muffled behind Jesse’s hand and she falls into another fit of giggles. This time Jesse joins her, laughing as he looks down and speaks to her. “What was that? I can’t hear you Ellie. Speak up!” He says dramatically. She laughs louder and then Blaine clears his throat.

“Jesse, please,” Jesse frowns and then slowly pulls his hand away.

“Uncle Jesse!” Ellie laughs looking up from his lap. Jesse looks down at her and smiles.

“Blaine, relax,” Kurt says making a note on the new page 18. “They’re just joking.”

“Yeah, but I can’t ask my daughter about her day at school when she can’t talk,” Blaine says getting mock cheerier as he looks from him to his daughter. She squeals and bounds off of Jesse’s lap.

“Papa we counted all the way to one hundred today!”

“What? No way,” Blaine says and picks her up after she runs to him. “Show me!”

“Hey wait,” Kurt says and reaches for him “How about you come eat with us and Ellie,” he says and pokes her leg playfully. “Can count these pages for us!”

“Yay!” Ellie says throwing her hands in the air. Blaine laughs at her and sits her down.

“Or,” he says and puts his hands on his hips as he stares down at her. “How about we celebrate your new found counting abilities and count the steps all the way to get frozen yogurt down the street!”

Ellie screams excitedly. “Can Esther come too?”

“Sure! Go see if she’s awake.” Ellie takes off down the hall before Blaine can finish.

“That’s cool, right?” Blaine says nonchalantly.

Jesse shrugs dramatically, “Oh o—“

“Of course,” Rachel says loudly over Jesse. They give each other pointed looks and then Jesse rolls his eyes and shuffles his papers as Rachel continues. “Just please get her a no sugar added option. I’d like to get her to fall back asleep at some point tonight.”

“Don’t you want to come and look at the work we’ve done,” Kurt says adjusting to get on his knees and lean over the couch towards Blaine. He puts an arm around his neck and pulls him in close. “We could use your help.” He smiles and leans in to kiss him.

Blaine lets their lips touch briefly and pulls away quickly. “You seem to be doing just fine without me.”

“She’s awake dad!” Ellie calls from her room.           

“Plus, duty calls, but,” Blaine gestures flippantly towards the scattered mess and then smiles. “Have fun with your little project.”

Kurt can’t even react when Blaine leans in to kiss him again; he so shocked by what just happened. Blaine walks off to retrieve the kids and Kurt is still in the same spot, mouth hanging open a little bit, when he and the girls leave.

“Wow,” Jesse scoffs.

“He didn’t mean that,” Kurt says a little numbly.

“Of course not, Kurt,” Rachel says soothingly.

“Are you kidding—“

“Shh!” Rachel says.

Jesse sighs heavily and stands.  “I need wine for this.”

“Get two glasses,” Rachel calls behind him.

“Three,” Kurt says as he sighs, crumbling back into his sitting position.  He silently looks around at the papers forming around him.

“Don’t you even dare,” Rachel says. “We’ve got something amazing here,” she says and comes to sit next to him on the couch.  “And between my lyrics, your story and Jesse’s-”

“Everything else,” Jesse says and flourishes a wine glass in front of each of them. Rachel gives him an exasperated smile and then looks back to Kurt.

“This is more than a little project. I can feel it. Remember! I am a little psychic.”

“Yeah,” Jesse says as he pours wine into their glasses. “She did predict the Doogie Howser musical would be terrible.”

Kurt sighs as Rachel nods excitedly.

Jesse smiles at her and then holds out his glass. “Kurt, you know I’m the first one to give you a hard time when I think you’re wasting your time on something. Which is often because you have horrible taste in projects. Really, that play a year ago –“

“Jesse,” Rachel sing-songs through her teeth, “Not helping.”

“My point,” he says. “Is that for the first time in a long time I feel like you’re doing something that you can not only be proud to be a part of, but that is worthy of your talent. It’s been too long. Our world misses you man.”

“To the comeback,” Rachel says excitedly.

“I never left.” Kurt says, confused. “I’m in shows all the time. “

Rachel and Jesse look at each other for a second and then Rachel speaks up.

“Listen, Jesse’s right. I know you don’t like to talk about it but you haven’t really been the same since Blaine stopped performing. And, -and,” She says putting up a hand to stop Kurt from talking. “I totally get it. All of us here know what it’s like to make sacrifices for our families. But Kurt this is your dream still. This life. This career. You worked hard to be here. No one should make you feel bad for that.”

Jesse clinks his glass against hers. “Hear, hear! To the Untitled St Hummelberry Project!”

Kurt smiles and nods before he takes a sip of his wine.

“Thanks guys,” Kurt says looking down into his glass, and then over to the papers. “Now, back to Act 2.”

“Yes, I think it needs a 2000’s flashback,”

“No,” Jesse and Kurt say together. Rachel looks between the two of them, shocked for a second, which makes them laugh, and shortly after she joins in.

++

It takes about two months for them to work out all of the kinks of a draft they’re willing to show to potential investors and slowly put together an ensemble. Blaine still hasn’t shown any interest in the musical no matter how many times Kurt has tried to involve him. There’s only so many times Kurt can pretend to mess up a piano melody, hoping Blaine will volunteer his help, before he starts to get annoyed with himself.

They’re going to start workshops soon, but as the lead and the show’s director, Rachel and Jesse want to wait until after Esther’s third birthday party.

Rachel and Kurt are walking around making last minute preparations for the party and Kurt opens up to her about his frustration with Blaine.

“Well, schools about to be out. Ellie is going to Ohio for a few weeks to be with you guys’ parents. Maybe you two can take this time to… reconnect,” she says and pauses to stare into a window display.

Kurt frowns down into his slowly melting cup of iced coffee. “You think so?”

“Kurt,” she says and rolls her eyes playfully. “It’s you and Blaine. You’ll work this out. Now. Last store I promise,” she says and drags him by the arm into another brightly lit store full of questionably styled children’s clothes that make Kurt want to die a little on the inside. He’s too distracted with that fact and his growing worry regarding his marriage to comment on how she told him one more store 4 stores ago.

Kurt is so busy helping with the party, and preparing Ellie for her trip to Ohio, that he doesn’t even think to bring it up until the day after Ellie is gone. Kurt is making some edits to the latest draft when Blaine comes in. Kurt glances at the clock and then at Blaine, and bites his tongue in mentioning the late hour. “Why don’t you come and have a glass of wine with me,” Kurt says and is mildly surprised when Blaine agrees, stepping into the kitchen to get a wine glass before coming to sit down next to him. They sit in silence for a while; Kurt busy with his edits, and Blaine looking at something on his phone.

“We should go on a trip soon,” Kurt says. “You know. Maybe Upstate for a few days before Ellie gets back?” In lieu of a reply, Blaine sighs and sits his phone and wine glass on the table and then reaches over to pull the papers out of Kurt’s hand.

“Hey,” Kurt exclaims but doesn’t get very far with his protest. Instead he’s silenced by the firm press of Blaine’s lips against his and calloused hands coming up to the back of his neck. Kurt leans into the touch, suddenly needy for it, and let’s himself be pulled on top of Blaine. The make quick work of their clothes, and Kurt relishes in the familiar ache and pleasure of making love to his husband.

Later when he’s re-evaluating his stance on falling asleep sticky, he let’s himself think, in that moment, that they’re going to be okay. 

Kurt is still riding the high of a good night with Blaine through to the next day and is inspired to cook up a proper dinner. He has to leave his meeting with Rachel and Jesse a bit early to get everything prepared. He shoots off a text to Blaine to let him know that he’s making dinner and to try and be home early. He’s about half way through it, when he realizes that he needs a few ingredients and sends off another text to Blaine asking him to pick something up.

When an hour passes by with no reply, Kurt runs down to the corner deli and grabs the few items he needs, sending Blaine another quick text telling him never mind and tries to subtly remind him of the time. Kurt has completed dinner and sat around for another hour longer, by the time Blaine walks in, grumbling about the door again.

“We need to get that door fixed,” Blaine says when he walks in. Kurt can see him pause and his eyes widen at the spread of food on the stove and counter.

“You’re home late,” Kurt says from his perch on the island countertop. Blaine looks to him and then quickly away back at the food. He rubs self-consciously at the back of his neck as he steps further into the kitchen.

“Yeah, the department extended my office hours and some kids definitely took advantage of it,” Blaine says.

“That’s good,” Kurt says and looks down at his glass of wine. “Promising,” he says and Blaine nods as he peeks into some of the pots. “You should have told me that when I texted you though.”

“Texts?” Blaine says not looking at him. Blaine pulls out his phone and scrolls through his phone and shrugs. “I didn’t get anything. Did you send them from the rehearsal space? I think the reception there might be bad.”

Kurt pauses and replays Blaine’s sentence in his head. He hadn’t mentioned that he’d sent more than one text to Blaine. He shakes his head, clearly overthinking it and hums noncommittally.

Blaine is suddenly in between is legs and placing his hands on either side of his waist.

“Hey,” he says softly. When Kurt looks down at him he leans up and kisses him. Kurt lets one hand rest at his cheek as he sighs into the gesture. When he pulls back, Blaine smiles and pecks him again, quickly this time, before speaking. “I’m sorry I was late.”

“It’s fine,” Kurt says and runs a hand through his hair. He moves his hand to under Blaine’s chin lifting lightly. “The text never went through anyway, right?” He pauses for a second gauging his reaction, but doesn’t really get a chance to because Blaine turns his face and kisses Kurt’s hand.

“So no harm done,” Blaine says and then steps away. “Have you eaten yet? I can set the table on the balcony. It’s not too hot out, and we haven’t done that in a while.”

Kurt slides off of the counter. “Sure, that sounds great.”

Fifteen minutes later, they’re settled out on the patio with the sounds of the semi busy streets muted below them. Kurt looks over to Blaine, who is looking peacefully out at the view. He follows his gaze and can’t help but feel a little less enthused by what he sees.

“This is all really good, Kurt,” Blaine says as he takes another bite of his food. “What’s the special occasion?”

Kurt shrugs. “Well with Ellie gone, I thought I’d do something a bit more romantic,” he says and looks down at his sparsely eaten plate of food.

“Well it’s delicious,” Blaine says and opens his mouth to say something else, when his phone starts to go off.  “Oh crap, hold on,” Blaine says and stands heading back inside. “I forgot to call Wes about-” he trails off as he swipes to answer the call. “Hey, man. Sorry, I forgot.” He says as he closes the door shut.

Kurt stares blankly at the door for several long minutes. He finishes the rest of the wine and then checks his watch, he’s probably not going to eat much more of this. He starts to clean up and puts the food away. He moves slowly, with the vague hope that Blaine will be finished with his call soon and help him. Anything to extend their time together, which makes him feel a bit pitiful.

After he’s packaged up most of the food into containers and even put aside a little container for Blaine to take for lunch tomorrow, he sits the pots in the sink to soak and then looks around the kitchen again, feeling restless.

He walks out of the kitchen and across the apartment to the study where he heard Blaine earlier and is about to knock on the door when he hears a line of conversation that makes him pause.

“I know what you mean. Kurt and I are going through the same thing,” Blaine says. Kurt leans in closer and strains to listen further. “Yeah but that’s the difference. You just need to talk to Jen about it,” he laughs harshly. “I know, pot calling the kettle, but I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like it’s just not worth it.”

Kurt steps back from the door and heads back towards the kitchen. He sends over a quick text to Rachel and then starts to pack up some of the food containers and a bottle of wine into a small bag. By the time he’s finished, Rachel has texted him back and he puts a sticky note on the container of food for Blaine that reads “ _Took some food and booze over to R &J’s. Probably gonna have a few drinks. Join if you’d like.  Love you. –Kurt_” and heads out of the door.

Kurt takes the 30 minute or so cab ride to Rachel and Jesse’s and is settled in with a glass of wine by the time his phone buzzes with a text from Blaine.

_Sorry you know how Wes talks. I’ll be over after I clean up_

Kurt sighs and relays the message to the room and starts to engage in the light-hearted banter of his friends. It’s quite sometime later when Blaine texts him again.

_I have some work stuff I need to do. Send my regards._

Kurt sighs, and sits his wine glass down. He starts to reply, Of course you do, but then he deletes it quickly.

_To Broadway? LOL. I’ll see you at home._

Kurt puts down his phone and turns his attention back to Rachel and Jesse, who’s just sat back down from checking on their sleeping daughter down the hall. “No Blaine?” Jesse asks as he sits back to his plate.

Kurt just leans forward and grabs the bottle of wine to refill his glass.

“Some work stuff came up,” Kurt mumbles before he takes a long sip of wine. Rachel huffs loudly across from him and when he looks her way she’s exchanging a knowing look with Jesse. He wants to tell her to go ahead and say what she’s holding back, but even if she weren’t his best friend, even if she wasn’t the person that he talked to the most about his marriage, his family, his whole life. Even if that weren’t the case, he’d know, it’s written all over her face that she doesn’t like the way the night has turned out, she can tell even if he tries not to show it, that she knows he’s hurt by it.

She clears her throat. “Did Ellie settle in that Blaine’s parent’s okay?”

Relieved for the change of topic Kurt nods and launches into the conversation.

“Yeah,” he laughs a little bit. “I talked to her for like an hour today. I think she’s already bored. But Cooper is going to have her over the weekend, and they are mentally the same age so that should be an event.”

“That’s great,” Jesse says. He nods his head as he prepares for another bite. “I know Esther misses her.”

Rachel scoffs as she sits her wine glass. “Which is code for her Uncle Jesse misses her.”

Kurt laughs as Jesse shrugs. “I love my little assistant! Who might I add, is better than my actual assistant.” He says with a frown then grins and looks between Kurt and Rachel. “I haven’t decided who she reminds me of more. She’s got a bossy streak out of this world and can be stubborn as hell.”

Kurt looks off, holding back a smirk. “No wonder you love her so much,” he says and glances at Rachel.

“Hey!” She says and throws her napkin at him. Kurt laughs and swats the napkin away.

“Just kidding,” he says with a sigh. “I know she’ll have fun. But I miss her already. We’re going to video chat when she get’s to my Dad and Carol’s. My dad is probably going to load her with all of the crap junk food that he wishes he can eat.”

“He would!” Rachel laughs. “Poor guy.”

“Poor him, poor me! I have to deal with the sugar withdrawing six year old,” Kurt says on a laugh.

“Point,” Jesse says and nods to Kurt as he stands and clears the plates from the table.

Rachel and Kurt stand and take their wine glasses into the living room and sit next to each other on the couch. Rachel is just about to launch into a story about the yoga mom she had a mini-spat with when Jesse walks in and announces “Oh Hey! Kurt, I need you to be at the space a little earlier tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re interviewing a new Producer.”

“Umm that’s what we have you for.”

“Well since I can’t be the producer, director, and choreographer, and you’re the best bullshit reader I know, I need you there.”

“Hey!” Rachel exclaims and points up at her husband. He smiles and leans down for a quick kiss.

“But you’re the cutest bullshit reader I know.” She smiles and does a carry on hand motion towards the two of them. Kurt rolls his eyes. “You probably know what it takes to work with me more than anyone does. Plus, Eileen keeps bugging me about her nephew and is convinced I can’t do all three jobs.” He finishes the last with a bit of an eye roll.

“They’ve clearly underestimated the power of one Mister St. James,” Rachel says adoringly as she looks up from her spot. Jesse smiles back down at her and leans in for another kiss. Sensing that this kiss won’t be as brief, Kurt downs the rest of his wine and stands.

“Alright, alright. Just have what’s-his-face send over this guy’s resume. Who is this guy anyway? Do you know him?”

“Jeremy was supposed to send them over earlier but clearly that’s too much to ask of him.” Jesse sighs out. “Seriously when is Ellie coming back again?”

Kurt laughs and grabs his jacket off the arm of the couch. “Stop trying to hire my kid. Anyway. Name?”

“Umm, Stan something. I don’t know,” Jesse says walking with Kurt towards the front door. “We’re really doing it as a favor to Eileen. Her nephew had some kind of mental breakdown and went AWOL or some shit. I don’t care. She wants him to have a job with us, and we need her money and all of her very, very rich friend’s money, so…”

“I get it. I get it,” he says as he pauses at the door. He turns and leans down to give Rachel a kiss on the cheek. “Give that to Esther.”

“Nope. All for me,” she quips. Kurt laughs and gives Jesse a quick hug before he turns to head out. Rachel puts a hand on his arm to stop him. “Hey wait, I’ll walk you down.”

She hands Jesse her wine glass and leads the way out the door before Kurt can even get his protest out. He turns to Jesse who just waves a hand at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Kurt follows Rachel down the hall. It’s hard to be annoyed by her persistence with the pleasant buzz of the wine coursing through him. He leans on the wall as they wait for the elevator doors to open.

“You didn’t have to come down with me,” Kurt says and nudges her softly.

Rachel smiles and shrugs, “I wanted to make sure you got in a cab okay.”

Kurt looks up at her alarmed. “I’m-”

“Half an hour away,” Rachel complains as the elevator chimes and the doors open.

“I was going to say five blocks from the subway,” Kurt says on a sigh. He doesn’t want to have this fight again.

“I still don’t really understand why you guys had to move,” Rachel starts.

“Rachel.”

“I mean why did I… I mean you… well we, anyway. Us,” She says pointing frantically to herself and Kurt, and then gesturing at the closed door that Kurt assumes encompasses Jesse, “Why do we have to suffer so Blaine can be closer to the school!” Rachel exclaims. Kurt opens his mouth to retort but she continues. “And! For a job he doesn’t even like!”

“Rachel,” Kurt says and puts his hands on her shoulders. “Deep breath.”

She huffs out a sigh and crosses her arms. Kurt pulls her in for a hug and switches to one arm as the door opens to the lobby and they walk out of the elevator. As they step outside, the door man steps closer to the curb and begins to hail a cab.

“Mr. Hummel,” the doorman says kindly, as he opens the door to a cab that has just pulled up. Kurt gives him a nod of appreciation and then turns to give Rachel another proper hug.

“I won’t say how sad it is that your doorman knows my name by now,” Kurt says has he hugs her closely.

“Thanks for dinner,” she says, muffled against his chest.

“Thanks for the company,” he says pulling back to plant a kiss on her forehead.

“Anytime,” she says as he pulls away. She grabs him by his wrist and squeezes as he looks back to her. “I mean it. Anytime.”

“I know that,” he says and then frowns at the concerned look on her face. “Rach-”

“I just want you to be happy Kurt,” Rachel says softly.

“I am. Aw honey, come here,” he says and pulls her in for another tight hug. “I love you. And I appreciate the concern. I do, but it’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

Rachel gives him a skeptical look but nods and steps back. She gives an apologetic wave to the cab driver as Kurt slides in. He makes sure to smile as he waves.

He repeats it on the ride home.

_Everything’s fine._

As he rides the elevator up to his floor.

_Everything’s fine_

As he opens the front door with ease.

_Everything. Is. Fine._

And as he strips down and redresses in pajamas it’s a steady mantra of _fine, fine, fine._

When he slides into bed next to Blaine he hears “How was Rach and Je...” mumbled sleepily from his side.

And without missing a beat Kurt answers as he stares up at the ceiling.

“Everything’s fine, Blaine.”

He gets a soft snore in response. 

+

Kurt gets distracted by a call from Ellie and totally misses the notification reminding him of the interview. He delivers a hasty goodbye to Ellie, with a promise to call her back as soon as he can, and practically runs out of the door. Normally prone to taking a bit of a stroll, before he gets in a cab or on the subway, Kurt opts for taking a cab immediately and offers to pay the guy an additional tip if he can get him there in 20 minutes.

Kurt bolts from the cab after tossing probably too much money at the driver and is out of breath by the time he gets to the door outside of the studio. He pauses, takes in a few long, calming breaths, and fixes his clothes and hair. He’s adjusting his tie when he starts to pick up on the voices talking.

“But anyway,” Jesse says. “Enough of that, tell me about yourself. You can skip the part about your nervous breakdown, Eileen told me all about it.”

Kurt abandons his attempts to right himself and runs inside frantically. “Jesse!” Kurt exclaims a little breathless from the doorway making them both look his way. Kurt rushes to the other side of table next to Jesse and hurriedly puts down his things. He reaches for the papers in front of Jesse that he assumes are the man’s resume. “I’m so sorry Mr.-”

Kurt looks up slowly from the papers into the eyes of Sebastian Smythe.

“Sebastian?” He says shocked.

“Hi Kurt,” Sebastian says and Kurt isn’t sure, but he thinks he can see the hint of a smirk playing at his lips.

“Yeah, Sebastian was telling me earlier that you all went to Dalton at some point. Small world, huh?” Kurt nods dumbly and lets Jesse pull him down into the seat next to him. This time he doesn’t imagine the smile on Sebastian’s lips. “Anyway.”

“Right,” Sebastian says and laughs a little. “By the way, I’m referring to it as my mid-life crises.”

“You’re nowhere near fifty,” Jesse says waving him off and taking Sebastian’s resume back from the still stunned Kurt.

“To presume I’ll live past sixty is optimistic, even for me,” Sebastian says with a shrug. Jesse beams at him and turns to Kurt with a look of pure excitement, like he’s just found the most wonderful surprise, and he nudges him in the side. Kurt snaps out of his stupor and clears his throat.

“Um, right. Yes,” he says and takes the resume back from Jesse who huffs loudly and calls out to the boy at the other side of the room.

“Jeremy, can you please get us more copies of this?” He says and takes the resume out of Kurt’s hand and gives it to him. As he walks out Jesse rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t have had to have asked Ellie.”

“Ellie can’t even reach the copier, Jesse. Let it go,” Kurt says annoyed.

“Who is Ellie?” Sebastian asks.

“My daughter.”

“My real assistant.”

Kurt put’s his head in his hands and groans, and then he looks up sharply when Sebastian laughs.

“I actually have more copies,” he says, reaching into his bag. He pulls out some more papers and puts them down in front of Jesse and Kurt. “But you won't really need it honestly. Most of my experience in the theatre dates further than I’m willing to put on my resume these days. _But_ my experience his definitely transferable.”

Kurt looks down at the list of jobs, most at a company called Smythe & Co.

“You left your family’s company to come work on a musical?” Kurt asks skeptically.

“Uh, no,” Sebastian says and then crosses his arms. Kurt watches him closely and sees the subtle way his body stiffens as he continues to talk. “I left my family’s company because I didn’t want the job. And I am here because… well mostly I’m here because Auntie threatened to cut me out of her will.”

Jesse and Sebastian laugh and Kurt suppresses an eye roll before speaking loudly over them. “And what makes you think that’s a good enough reason for us to want to trust- For me, to want to trust you. This isn’t just about money for us here Sebastian.”

“Well lucky for you, for me it is,” Sebastian says and reaches down into his bag again. “In fact, these are all the people who I plan on reaching out to upon my onboarding. They’re tiered off. Yellow means hot lead, pink means warm lead, blue means some coaxing will be necessary but very doable. Most of those people aren’t from the theater world and will need wining and dining and such.”

“And what about the green ones,” Jesse asks, pointing down at the list. Kurt looks back to the list of the half a dozen names highlighted in green and looks back up as Sebastian starts to speak again.

“Those are the people who I know will invest or donate, even if I’m not attached to the project. Which I am fully prepared to leave with you if you guys decide to go with someone else.”

“Why would you do that?” Kurt asks.

Sebastian looks shocked for a second. “Because I read your musical,” he says simply.

Kurt stares at him for a few long seconds and Sebastian stares back. The steady gaze makes Kurt feel something akin to uncomfortable but not quite, and can’t bring himself to look away.

“Should I leave you two alone?” Jesse asks slowly. Kurt looks away then, but only to glare at Jesse. When he looks back to Sebastian, he’s staring down at his bag. Kurt is probably imagining the light tinge of pink on his cheeks. Kurt looks down at the list of names, determined for there to be a least one professional on his side of the table.

“Sebastian. This is all great, but the theatre culture here runs deep, and it’s old,” he picks up the list of names. “I don’t recognize any of these names. Wine or dine all you want. Sometimes the backers carry more wait then their money.”

“True,” Sebastian starts. “I don’t have many traditional theatre contacts, but I have three Tony winners at my disposal, an Aunt older than dirt, who annoyingly but sometimes helpfully, knows everyone, and several um… acquaintances,” Sebastian says, smirk back in place, “who write for _Page Six_.”

“Nice,” Jesse says as he types something out on his phone.

“Like I said, I didn’t want to work at Smythe & Co., but I was damn good at my job. I can get you the money you need by schmoozing every damn person in this city if I have to. I will get us the best budget possible and then stick to it.” Then he points to Kurt, “And make you stick to it.” Jesse laughs as Kurt squawks indignantly. “I know I’m not the perfect choice, hell I’m probably not even your first choice, but this is more about having the right mentality and resources, and of course a perfect jaw line.

Kurt actually does roll his eyes then and Sebastian and Jesse share a laugh.

“Being a Producer is more than just money,” Kurt says again. “Our team… for now at least is small. And we’re all each other will have really until we get the ball rolling…”

“Okay?” Sebastian says slowly.

“Basically,” Jesse says before Kurt can talk again. “He want’s to know you’re not going to be an asshole and run people off when we don’t have that many to begin with.”

“Not exactly,” Kurt hurries to say. “But—“

“Kurt I get it. High School was… interesting for us.  But working in the corporate world is not a walk in the park, there are politics within politics within politics, and the lines of formality blur into nonexistence sometimes,” Sebastian says and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looks between the two of them seriously. “I worked at Smythe & Co. for almost 11 years and started in an entry level position. I had to work my way up just like everyone else.

“I know what hard work looks like, I know what grunt work looks like, and I know when to be a hard ass and when to show compassion. I can play if fast and loose and take chances with my gut and sometimes I hold it close to the chest, but know that anything I do is for the better good of this… honestly, this masterpiece that I fell in love with last night.”

Kurt breath catches and he coughs, trying to cover up his surprise. He scrambles for something to say hoping his face doesn’t look as flushed as it feels. “Fell in love with huh?” Kurt asks, smirking softly. “It didn’t lose your interest twenty minutes in?”

When Kurt looks up to Sebastian, he’s looking at him with this confused looked on his face, and for a moment Kurt feels so stupid. Why on earth would Sebastian remember a stupid thing he said almost 20 years ago? Kurt’s about to brush it off when Sebastian’s confusion fades and he laughs softly and looks a little shocked himself.

“No, not this time,” they just stare across the table, smiling at each other and Jesse clears his throat.

“Cool, you’re hired. When my useless assistant Jeremy comes back we’ll get you the onboarding papers to fill out.”

“Don’t you want to discuss it with the rest of your team?” Sebastian asks.

Jesse points to himself. “Jesse St. James likes you. He likes you a lot.”

“God not this again,” Kurt says and hands Sebastian back the list of names he’d given them earlier. “You can start to ignore him when he speaks in third person. “

“Noted,” Sebastian says and smiles.

Jeremy comes in with a much larger stack of papers than what his original errand called for. Jesse just stares at him.

“How many copies did you make?” Kurt asks carefully.

“Thirty!” he says proudly.

“Why in the –“ Jesse starts but Sebastian stands at that point and puts a hand on the kids shoulder and starts to lead him out of the room.

“Jeremy is it? I’m Sebastian the new producer for the show. Tell me, do you like working here?” He asks as he turns him around and pushes him out the door. They are out and in to the hallway by the time they start speaking again and Jesse is still looking annoyed.

“Well that went well,” Kurt says. Jesse looks at him incredulously.

“He made thirty copies of one resume for two people, Kurt-”

“The _interview_ went well, Jesse. Calm down,” Kurt says and points to the seat. “Rachel is going to freak out.”

“Yeah? You guys aren’t friends? He mentioned something about the proposal.”

“Yeah,” Kurt says. He vaguely remembers Sebastian being there. He honestly doesn’t remember much about that day. “But he was always more of Blaine’s friend the mine.”

Jesse hums an acknowledgment and types out something on his phone. “Well you two seemed to be pretty tight today.”

“What does that mean?” Kurt asks, but instead of getting an answer, Jesse looks up at him and frowns.

“Why were you late?”

“I got distracted by a call from Ellie—“

“Did you tell her I missed her?”

“No. I told you her you hope she never came back,” Kurt deadpans, and then rolls his eyes at the wounded look on Jesse’s eyes. He sighs and reaches for Sebastian’s resume again.

“But I’m regretting that I wasn’t,’ Kurt says and glares up at Jesse. “ I can’t believe you told him what Eileen said!”

“He went through it, it’s not like it’s a secret,” Jesse complains.

“Yes it is,” Kurt starts loudly but then turns into a hushed, but forceful, whisper as he notices Sebastian is walking back into the room, Jeremy in tow with coffee. “And it’s his to share around. Not Eileen’s and not your.”

Kurt turn to the men approaching and puts on a smile just in time for Jeremy to hand him a cup of coffee, in a brown paper cup followed by an itinerary for the day's practice. Kurt holds back the snort of laughter at the shocked look Jesse’s face when he gets the same treatment. Jesse, who is still staring wonderingly at his own cup of coffee, numbly he thanks Jeremy. The boy gives Sebastian a panicked look before he walks out quickly. Kurt turns his attention back to Sebastian, unabashed shock plastered on his face.

“How?” He asks faintly.

Sebastian laughs and shrugs, “I let him explain why he thought 30 copies were necessary for three people and then calmly told him why that was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. It’s about reading people. And with someone so young, it’s about shaping them into the professional you want them to be.”

“I love you, and if I weren’t straight and late for a meeting I’d jump you right now,” Jesse says as he picks up his things and starts to walk out.

“And happily married,” Kurt yells after him.

“Yeah, that too,” Jesse calls from the hall.

Kurt shakes his head as Sebastian laughs and a comfortable silence settles over the room.

“You seem different,” Kurt says without really meaning to. Sebastian looks to him, head cocked with an odd smile/smirk combo on his face.

“Different how?” He asks.

“Well apart from the fact that you could have easily tore Jeremy a new one like Jesse’s been threatening to do,” Kurt says and stands to gather his things.

“I told you, it’s about reading people,” Sebastian says and starts to stand too.

“I don’t know.” Kurt says. He pauses and waits for Sebastian to gather his things and then they start to walk out of the room. “Maybe it’s the hair.”

“Oh yeah, I finally ditched the CW look,” he says and grins as he puts his papers back into his bag.

“Thank the good lord for that,” Kurt says dryly. Sebastian laughs and pushes the door open.

When they’re out on the curb, Kurt points in the direction he’s going, “I’m this way.”

“Me too actually,” Sebastian says with a nervous laugh, which throws Kurt off. He squints his eyes as he takes him in. There are just so many odd differences about this man that he can’t pinpoint. “Let’s walk and, um, catch up?”

Kurt nods and they silently start to walk down to the sidewalk. The silence stretches out until Kurt says, “So St. Edwards? That’s a bit out of the blue?”

Sebastian smiles a little bit and shakes his head. “Not really. They have partner schools abroad, so it seemed like an easy choice for me. That way I could spend more time in Paris with my sisters.”

“Ah,” Kurt says and nods. “Summer getaways weren’t enough for you?”

Sebastian huffs out a laugh that extends into a sigh and adjusts his shoulder bags. “Well those kind of stopped when my Dad and stepmom got divorced.”

“So do you still get to go?” Kurt asks. “To Paris I mean.”

Sebastian nods. “Yeah, I try to go every New Year. And,” he says and smirks a little. “I just got back from there. Perfect place for a midlife crises.”

Kurt nods but doesn’t say anything to that.

“What about you?” Sebastian says after there have been a few minutes of silent walking. “You and Rachel and Blaine went to school here right?”

“Yeah. Rachel and I graduated from New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, NYADA,” Kurt adds. “Blaine went there for a bit, but umm. Yeah.”

Kurt is ready for the barrage of Blaine questions at the mention of his name, but Sebastian only gives him a subtle grin before he continues on. “So a daughter huh?” He asks. “How old?”

From there Kurt get’s distracted talking about his daughter; the way she lights up a room when she walks in, and her 1000watt smile, although temporarily snaggletooth-y, and her affinity (much to all of their pleasure) to singing and dancing. It’s not until he realizes he’s talking about a one puppet only puppet show she put on for them at Thanksgiving last year, when he pauses.

“Oh no,” Kurt says and puts his head in his hands. After a few seconds, he spreads his fingers and looks between them. “I’ve become that guy. Always talking about his kids.”

“Well thank god you only have one,” Sebastian says dryly but with a grin on his face. “I only have about 10 more minutes.”

“Oh of course, wouldn’t want to interrupt your regularly scheduled Craigslist creeping,” Kurt says.

Sebastian’s eyes widen in surprise before he starts to laugh and then shrugs, “Those misconnections aren’t going to write themselves.”

“Such a service you provide,” Kurt says sarcastically. Then slows to a stop and points up to the building as the approach. “This is me actually. Well, Rachel and Jesse, but whatever.”

Sebastian laughs a little and nods. “Well I guess I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah, see you,” Kurt says and offers a little wave.

As they part ways, Kurt looks over his shoulder as Sebastian walks away, and something stills seems off. Kurt stares until Sebastian disappears into the crowd. And yet again is scared out of his mind by the sudden appearance of Rachel at his side.

“Why are you standing out here? Come up. Oh! And how was the interview,” she says in a rush. Kurt frowns at her and then takes a deep breath.

“It was fine,” he grumbles and then brightens. “You’ll never believe who we just hired.”

Kurt lets the unease of his last moment with Sebastian wash away as he tortures Rachel with mindless clues about who their new producer could be, which is of course all ruined when Rachel calls Jesse while Kurt is in the bathroom.

“Sebastian Smythe,” she says, shock evident in her voice. as Kurt comes back out into the room. She slowly turns to look at Kurt. “Oh my god. Jesse bye,” she says and hangs up. Kurt laughs because he knows that she hung up on him midsentence. “Oh my god, Kurt!”

“I know,” Kurt says as he sits down. “It was crazy.”

“God, I haven’t seen Sebastian in years. Probably since you and Blaine got engaged.”

Kurt nods and takes a sip from his glass of water as Rachel continues.

“Is he still super-hot,” she asks excitedly. Kurt just stares at her, has half a mind to tell her she’ll have to get inline behind Jesse, before he shakes his head and huffs out a laugh.

“He’s different,” Kurt says and thinks back to the man he met today. He looks at Rachel and rolls his eyes at the anticipation on her face. “Nothing crazy. Just different.”

“Small world, huh?” Rachel says and then stands to go check on Esther who’s calling for her down the hall. “I mean. Sebastian Smythe is Eileen’s nephew!”

“Small world,” Kurt agrees softly to the now empty room. “Small world indeed.”

+

Kurt catalogs the differences as the days tick on. He finds himself looking to Sebastian anytime the opportunity for a dirty joke arises, only to have Jesse reach it a few seconds later, and instead of laughing and adding on to it like he’d expect, Sebastian just smiles indulgently and continues on with the conversation. Kurt watches this happen a few times, and soon Sebastian meets his eye and then points to Jesse right when he makes the joke and makes a funny face. Kurt laughs out loud and then covers his mouth when they all turn to look at him, surprised.

“Sorry, read something on my phone,” Kurt mumbles, not wanting to give Jesse any more reason to tell stupid jokes then shoots Sebastian an annoyed look. Sebastian smiles, actually smiles, not the expected smirk, before he looks back to Jesse. Kurt realizes then that he rarely sees Sebastian smile. Part of him wants to keep making it happen.

Over the next few days, it becomes abundantly clear that Sebastian is not the same guy he knew almost 15 years ago. Kurt looses track of how often he watches Sebastian’s smile dim when he thinks know one is looking, or stop mid joke and look around almost apologetically at them all. Kurt swears he even sees him fidget every time the assistant Jeremy does something stupid, like he’s holding back a response.

Kurt notices these things in the few times they’re all together, since it seems almost impossible to get Sebastian in the same room with them for long. Most of his communication is sent through email, and any time Kurt has to address him directly, he tends to avert his eyes and answer and quick responses.

“Do you notice anything weird about Sebastian?” Kurt asks Rachel one day as they’re all about to sit down for a round of rewrites. Rachel pauses for a second and tilts her head, as though she’s thinking about it.

“How do you mean?”

“Like,” Kurt starts, finding it difficult to articulate why this is even bothering him. Probably because he fears he already knows the answer to it. “Does he seem a little distant?”

Rachel’s look of consideration turns into one of confusion and she starts to shake her head. “Oh, no. He’s,” she pauses and looks a little shocked by what she’s about to say. “Actually kind of nice. Which definitely threw me off, but he stayed over for dinner the other day when his and Jesse’s meeting ran late and it was pretty pleasant. It’s probably all in your head.” Rachel says and opens up her book of notes.  Kurt just hums and moves to sit at the piano before she continues.

Kurt’s patience on the matter dissipates soon after that and he calls Sebastian that night on a whim, and admittedly after a few glasses of wine.

“Yes?” Sebastian says when he picks up the phone.

“Hi,” Kurt says and then stalls. He hadn’t really thought of what he would say honestly.

“Is everything okay, Kurt?” Sebastian asks, suspicion coloring his tone.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kurt says quickly. “Everything is fine, I just-” he pauses and bites down on his lip willing himself to get over this. “Are you free for lunch right now?”

“What?” Sebastian says, shock evident. “It’s like 9 at night.”

“Yeah, right, duh,” Kurt says on an awkward laugh. “I have some new pages that I need some advice on, and since you’re going to be the one selling it to people, it might as well go by you first,” Kurt says and rolls his eyes a little bit at the lie. He doesn’t actually have all that much to show him.

“Um, yeah okay. Are you still up the studio? I can meet you at there. I’m not very far,” Sebastian says distractedly. Kurt thinks he can hear him shuffling around on the other end of the line.

“Um, no,” Kurt says deflating a little bit. “I’m at my apartment.”

“Oh, well I don’t mind coming to you,” Sebastian says. Kurt thinks he hears a jingle of keys. “Text me the address.”

“Okay,” Kurt says and nods. “Right.”

They hold the phone for a few more awkward pauses, thinking the other one is about to say something until Sebastian huffs out a laugh and a quick “Bye” and disconnects.

Kurt stares down at the screen for several long moments before he snaps out of it. He looks around at his apartment for anything out of place. He’s not sure why he feels the need for everything to be clean, but he walks around the apartment a few times before his phone chimes in his hand.

_Hello? Address?_

Kurt swears and quickly types out his address followed by an apology.

Twenty minutes later, Kurt’s wiping imaginary dust from his TV screen when he hears the intercom buzz. He looks around the apartment one more time before he walks over and presses the speaker button down. “Hello?”

“Yeah it’s me,” comes Sebastian’s voice through the crackling speaker and Kurt buzzes him in. Kurt hovers around the front door, pacing from end to end of his narrow hallway until finally there’s a knock on the door.

He opens the door with a little more force than he means too and stumbles back a little bit, but catches himself on the frame before he can fall. When he looks back to Sebastian, he has a hand outstretched as if he was anticipating catching him.

Kurt laughs a little awkwardly as he straightens up. “Um. Come in.” He says and gestures him inside. Sebastian nods and walks pass him and into the room. Kurt closes and locks the door before he follows behind Sebastian. He’s oddly anxious as he watches Sebastian look around the apartment, slowing to look at pictures along the wall. Kurt thinks it’s probably the light but he looks a little sad as he does. Kurt comes a little closer and frowns when he follows his eyes to a picture of him and Blaine at the Tony’s. That was the last year they’d gone to the Tony’s together. Blaine started to avoid them for reasons he didn’t like to talk to Kurt about.

“You look happy there,” Sebastian says softly and then turns around and continues looking at the apartment. “Nice place you have here.”

“Thanks,” Kurt says as he continues to look at the photo. He _was_ really happy that night. Sometimes he wishes he could go back.

“So those pages?” Sebastian says. Kurt tears his eyes away from the picture.

“Um,” Kurt says and then looks at Sebastian for a few long seconds before he walks away towards the kitchen. He can hear foots steps behind him so he doesn’t bother turning to see if he’s being followed. He picks up the wine glass he’d had earlier and takes a long sip from it. He fidgets and when he looks up, Sebastian is eyeing him curiously. “Do you want some wine? Blaine’s a bit of a snob about it, which is weird because he doesn’t actually drink it all that much, but we have all kinds so I’m sure there’s something for you. Not that you’re a snob. A wine snob. Not that I think you’re a snob in general, I don’t actually know you. But I want to because you used to be kind of a jerk and now you’re kind of not, I think, and it’s really kind of confusing and okay I actually don’t have any pages to show you.”

Kurt takes a deep breath after the rush of unfiltered nonsense. Sebastian just stares at him and blinks. “I don’t even know where to start with that.”

“I know,” Kurt groans. “I lied.”

The confusion on Sebastian’s face deepens and he opens his mouth to speak again, but once again Kurt beats him to it.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Kurt pauses, shaking his head. “I just feel like I don’t know you. And I, um, want to?”

“Okay,” Sebastian says slowly.

“Great,” Kurt says and turns to pull a glass down from the rack and then holds it out in front of Sebastian.  “So. Wine?”

Sebastian starts to shake his head, but Kurt is already pouring some into the glass, he huffs out a laugh and shrugs before reaches out to grab the glass. “Alright, sure.”

Sebastian is half way into his glass of wine when he finally seems to get tired of Kurt saying that he’s different. He sits his wine glass on the kitchen table, leans back and crosses his arms. “What makes you think I’m not the same?”

“Well, I can’t exactly pin-point it.” Kurt says and shrugs. “Plus, Rachel likes you now. And I hate to admit it but she can be annoyingly perceptive sometimes.”

“Jesse likes me,” Sebastian says, a small smile playing on his lips. “What does that say?”

“That he actually likes you,” Kurt says honestly. “He mostly just tolerates people.”

“And what about you Kurt? How do you feel about me,” Sebastian says and leans forward to rest his elbows on the table. He looks directly into Kurt’s eyes, which for some reason makes Kurt flush a bit.

“I feel,” Kurt says and then clears his throat. “I feel that I need a snack. I can make something.” He says and jumps up to start looking around the kitchen.

“What?” Sebastian says, surprised by the change in topic. “Kurt, no. I’m fine. I don’t need a snack.”

Kurt ignores him and settles on popping a bag of popcorn. While it heats and expands in the microwave, Kurt moves around his kitchen looking from cabinet to cabinet, blaming his wine-addled mind on his inability to find the right thing. He makes an excited noise of triumph when he pulls a big decorative bowl from the back of one of the bottom shelves. He sits it on the counter just as the timer beeps and reaches over to retrieve the popcorn, careful not to burn his hand. He pours the contents out and then unceremoniously plops it in front of Sebastian.

“So fancy,” Sebastian deadpans.

“Only the finest, most gourmet meals for my dear producer,” Kurt says loftily.

“What makes this gourmet?” Sebastian asks with a hint of incredulity in his voice.

“The bowl,” Kurt snaps. “Now shut up and eat it.” 

Sebastian laughs. Really laughs. Head thrown back, hand over chest, eyes shut and crinkly, full body kind of laugh. And Kurt is temporarily mesmerized.

“God, I needed that,” Sebastian says as he settles down. He reaches into the bowl and grabs a few pieces. “Thanks Kurt.”

“You’re welcome,” Kurt says quietly. He picks up his glass of wine and takes a sip. Silence spreads over them for a few minutes as they drink and eat.

“So after Who’s Afraid, what did you do?” Sebastian says after he swallows down a sip of wine. “You and Blaine left together, right?”

“Ah no, I stayed,” Kurt says. “Blaine got offered to do this role in Hi-Ball. And at the time it seemed really promising so he left to go and do that and I stayed behind with the new lead—“

“And how was that?”

“It was good, Blaine did really well in my opinion bu—“

“No I meant how was working with the new guy after Blaine left,” Sebastian asks. Kurt stares at him and smiles hesitantly.

“I don’t know what you mean…”

“Okay,” Sebastian says and smirks a little as he leans forward on the table again. “What was it like to work with someone who was not your husband, what was the energy like, how did it feel?”

“It was fine,” Kurt says and shrugs, looking down at his cup. “Blaine and Charles were really good friends so—“

“Were?” Sebastian asks.

“Well Charles is with the Who’s Afraid tour now. I’m sure it’s just hard to keep in touch,” Kurt says even though his mind travels to a night very long ago with whiskey ridden insults thrown between the two “friends”.

“Right,” Sebastian says. “Then what?”

“Well Hi-Ball had a short run,” Kurt says and then quickly adds, “But the timing was great because Ellie was getting to the age where she needed more attention. So it was nice that Blaine was able to be around more.”

“And what did you do?”

“I kept working,” Kurt says and shrugs. “Smaller productions. A lot of off-Broadway stuff, but everything was pretty well received.”

“Didn’t you workshop the Antihero musical?” Sebastian asks.

“Ye- How did you know that?” Kurt asks.

“People talk. Turns out a lot of people were disappointed you didn’t take the role once it hit Broadway.” Sebastian says, eyeing him curiously. Kurt just shrugs suddenly uncomfortable under his gaze. “Interesting.”

“What is?” Kurt asks. Sebastian just waves him off and makes a go on gesture as he takes a sip of his coffee. “Well after that Blaine started teaching some work shops at Columbia and was then offered a lecture role in their Columbia-Juilliard program. Which is huge. So I’m happy for him, and he really loves it, and his students. You know he feels like he’s making a difference. So yeah. I couldn’t be more happy for him.”

Sebastian just stares at him.

“What?”

“Why does it sound like you’re trying to sell me something?”

Kurt frowns. “What? I’m not. Blaine and I-”

“Are not what I keep asking about.” Sebastian says softly. “I want to know about you Kurt.”

Kurt fidgets again and looks away.  “There’s not much to say really.”

“I don’t believe that,” Sebastian says. And when Kurt looks back he’s giving him a soft smile.

“What about you?” Kurt says straightening in his chair. “We’ve been talking about me so much. What about you? Who has the infamous Sebastian Smythe turned into?”

Sebastian laughs and shrugs. “He turned into this. A whole lot of nothing.” Sebastian says and then smiles as he takes a sip of wine and looks down at his watch.

“What does that mean? You’re—“

“Do you want to come somewhere with me?” Sebastian cuts him off.

Thrown by the change of topic Kurt shakes his head. “What?”

“There’s a guy I know who owns a nightclub near by,” Sebastian says as he reaches in his pocket for his phone. “I’ve been meaning to come by, and I could use some help in persuading his support.”

“You want me to be your wingman?”

Sebastian laughs. “Yeah, something like that. Is that a yes?”

Kurt pretends to mull it over as he reaches into the bowl of popcorn and then shrugs nonchalantly. “Yeah. Okay.” Kurt says as he stands up, “Let me change.”

“What? No you look fine,” Sebastian says and stands.

“I’m wearing jeans and a v-neck,” Kurt says frowning down at his outfit.

“Very tight jeans,” Sebastian says as he types something out on his phone. “Plus did you forget what part of town you live in? You’ll blend right in.”

“Oh, screw you,” Kurt says, but he can’t help but laugh a little.

“You are just a spectacular ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” Sebastian says as he downs the rest of his wine, making Kurt grimace, and then turns to walk towards the door.

“Neanderthal,” Kurt says as he takes one last appropriate sip of his wine, just to prove a point and rushes out behind him. “Hold on at least let me fix my hair.”

“No time, come on,” Sebastian says and catches Kurt around the middle and pulls him towards the door. “You look good. Intentional bed head is in again.”

“I _do not_ have bed-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sebastian cuts him off and grabs the keys from the bowl near the door then opens it and pushes Kurt out into the hallway. He closes the door and locks it before Kurt can protest anymore.

“My wallet is in there,” Kurt says.

“Do you have your phone?”

“Yes, bu-”

“Then let’s go,” Sebastian says and walks towards the elevator.

“What about my ID?” Kurt calls after him.

“That’s cute that you think you need it,” Sebastian says over his shoulder. Kurt squawks indignantly and follows behind him.

“I will have you know that years of a rigorous skin care routine have left me with nearly invisible pours and the face of an angel.”

“Yeah, just not a ‘precious angel’,” Sebastian says and smiles at him as he steps onto the elevator. Kurt just glares at him. He looks at him so long that Sebastian has to put his hand out to stop the elevator from closing. “Are you going to just stand there?”

“I could go back to my apartment and leave you to it,” Kurt says and waves a dismissive hand at Sebastian. “Whatever _it_ is.”

“I have your keys.”

“Say that I have great skin.”

“Are you six? Get on the elevator, Kurt.”

“Say it.”

“You’re a pretty, pretty princess with flawless skin and a great ass…sets,” Sebastian says and then clears his throat. “Get on the damn elevator.”

Kurt looks at him, considering, before he gives in and gets on the elevator.

“For the show,” he says as the elevator doors close. “And don’t call me princess.”

Sebastian just laughs softly. “Whatever you say, Sunshine.”

After a short walk down a few blocks Kurt and Sebastian get to the bar. Kurt inwardly groans when he sees the line of people wrapped around the building, but Sebastian takes them straight to the front door. Kurt ignores the tiny tremor in his stomach when Sebastian touches the small of his back as he guides him. The bouncer nods as they pass and lets the two of them through the entrance. Kurt looks around and tries to make sense of his surrounding in the midst of all the flashing lights.

“Follow me,” Sebastian says, breath warm and distracting against his skins as he leans in close to whisper in his ear. When he pulls back he takes his hand and leads him down a much quieter section.

Kurt can’t help but look down at they’re joint hands as he let’s Sebastian pull him up some stairs back out into the loud upper floor. He scans the crowd of people for a few moments before he pauses and then points to the bar.  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet.

“Hey, get us some drinks and then meet me over there,” he says and cocks his head towards the corner. Kurt frowns, his immediate response being one of derision, but before he can object to being bossed around, Sebastian is putting his credit card into his palm and already walking away. Kurt watches him tap a guy on the shoulder and then hug the stranger. Kurt sighs and goes to the bar.

It takes him minimal effort to get to the bar and he leans against it, tapping the credit card against the counter as he scans the selection in front of him. He’s caught a bit by surprise when the bartender stands in front of him and leans down, mimicking his stance.

“Oh hi,” Kurt says, he’d thought he’d have to flag someone down.  He looks at the rows of bottles and then back to the bartender apologetically. “Um. I’m not sure I know what I want yet.”

The bartender smiles and shrugs, “That’s okay. I’ve got all the time in the world for you.”

Kurt is once again thankful for the dim lighting of the club, he can feel his cheeks start to heat up. The bartender laughs softly and then looks over his shoulder at the bottles. “You like whiskey?”

“Sure,” Kurt says and watches as the bar tender reaches up to grab a bottle from the top and starts to pour it in to a shaker.

“You know I saw you at 54 Below,” He says as he simultaneously pours two more bottles into the shaker.

“Oh,” Kurt says, a bit taken aback. “Wow. Really.”

“And Who’s Afraid,” The bartender says and nods. He starts to shake the canister vigorously for a few seconds before he pours it in to the glass in front of him. He garnishes it with a lime and puts it on a napkin. He slowly slides it across the bar to Kurt. “Tell me how you like it.”

Kurt smiles softly and then reaches for the drink. He has to clear his throat a little after, but he nods his approval. “That’s incredible. What do you call it?”

“The Kurt Hummel,” The bartender says and winks. Kurt laughs, pleased even if it’s a little cheesy.

“Well no wonder it’s so good,” He says, playing along. He reaches out to give him Sebastian’s card, but the guy waves him off.

“That ones on me,” He says and gives him another smile.

“That’s so sweet,” Kurt says and then looks over his shoulder. “But I do need to get another drink for my friend over there,”

“Sure, want another Kurt Hummel?”

“Hmmm,” Kurt bites down on a smile and scans the bar again. “Can you make him something obnoxiously fruity? Oh! And with one of those umbrella straws.”

The bartender laughs and nods, “Coming right up.”

Kurt is watching the guy add another syrup to the shaker when he feels a hand slide across his back.

“Bryant, this is Kurt,” Sebastian says as Kurt turns around. Kurt reaches out to shake the guys hand and his mind immediately goes to ‘smirk in a suit’. But he has to focus because the smirk is talking to him. “So Kurt. Sebastian says you’re some kind of Broadway sensation.”

“Sebastian exaggerates,” Kurt says and waves the compliment off.

“I’d beg to differ,” the bartender says. They turn to look at him as he drops an umbrella onto the side and sides it towards them. “I don’t name drinks after just anyone.”

Sebastian looks down at the umbrella drink, amused. “How appropriate, Sunshine.”

“Oh this?” Kurt says and picks up the drink and hands it to Sebastian. “No that’s for you. This is’ the Kurt Hummel’. I’d give you a taste, but I don’t think you could handle it.

Sebastian’s eyes widen for a second before he starts to smile. He turns to Bryant who is laughing and signaling to the bartender.

“I’ll have my usual Evan,” He turns to Kurt, “I like you. Tell me more about this show of yours.”

“I’ve got an even better idea,” Sebastian says. “Let him perform with the house band.”

Kurt startles, looking from Sebastian to Bryant, with a growing panic. He is fully prepared to put a stop to it before this goes any further, but the guy is already waving someone else over. “That might be doable actually. Elliot, do you think you can share the stage for a bit tonight?”

“Depends on if those legs belong to who I think they do?” Kurt turns and almost drops his drink when he sees Elliot coming close.

“Elliot,” Kurt says and hugs him when he gets close enough. “Oh my god.”

“Good to see you, Kurt,” he says, hugging him tight before pulling away. “So what? Are we putting on a show for these good people tonight?”

“Oh no no no,” Kurt says and shakes his head.

“Oh come on, for old time’s sake,” Elliot says and nudges Kurt in the side.

“Yeah, Sunshine, for old time’s sake,” Sebastian says and smirks at him.

“Oh shut up,” Kurt tells him and then downs his drink. He hands Sebastian the empty glass and then grabs Elliot by the suspenders and walks away. “Let’s do this before my buzz wears off.”

Elliot laughs and lets Kurt pull him all they way down to the stage. “What do you say we hit them with some old school Mother Monster?”

Kurt hums his approval and thinks for a few seconds. “You and I?” He asks. Elliot claps his hands on Kurt’s shoulders and nods enthusiastically.

“Have I told you how much I love you lately,” Elliot says excitedly before he turns to relay the song choice to the band.  When they’ve all agreed, Elliot walks up to the mic and gets the crowd’s attention. “Alright listen up you little heathens. We are gonna give a warm goddamn welcome to a very good friend of mine. One of Broadways sexiest leading men, and the only person I know who can pull off gold pleather pants. Mr. Kurt Hummel!”

Kurt waves at the crowd and nods a thank you to the stagehand that brings him a mic and stand of his own. He looks from Elliot to the crowd and then to the band, “Let’s do this then.”

++

“That was insane,” Elliot says loudly into his ear as they hug. The crowd is still cheering boisterously and when they pull apart Kurt looks up to the balcony to see Sebastian and Bryant shaking hands. When Sebastian looks his way he shoots him a wink.

“Blaine who?” Elliot murmurs in Kurt’s ear as he ushers him off stage.

After a few rounds of celebratory shots, courtesy of an excited Evan, Sebastian and Kurt take their leave. Kurt hugs Elliot tight and promises to have him over soon, while Sebastian walks away from Bryant telling him he’ll email him the details. As soon as they’re outside, Sebastian laughs excitedly. Kurt looks at him, brows near his hairline, and waits for him to calm.

“That was incredible!” Sebastian says and puts his hands on Kurt shoulders. “You were incredible. I have been working on this guy for days! And You…” He pauses and steps back and stares at him with this look of awe on his face. “You just blew him away.”

Kurt waves him off. He starts to walk down towards the edge of the street, no real destination in mind. “It was a team effort.”

“Wow. You really don’t know how to take a compliment.”

“I’m modest,” Kurt says with a bit more force than he means to.

Sebastian moves to stand in front of him forcing him to stop in his tracks. “I think you’re scared.”

Kurt glares and tries to walk around him. “Well I think you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I _do_ actually. I did my research. I read all about the Who’s Afraid once Blaine left, and how ticket sales picked back up along with a trove of positive reviews,” Sebastian says as he continues to move in front of Kurt, blocking his way.  “I know that almost everyone in this industry seems to think that you’re the best kept secret in this town. And it turns out, you’re the one who’s keeping it that way.”

“I don’t need you or anyone else to tell me who I am as a performer. I’m doing just fine on my own,” Kurt says and pushes him out of the way.

“Oh no, of course. You know exactly who you are,” Sebastian yells after him. “You’re Blaine Anderson’s husband, and Ellie’s Father, Rachel Berry’s best friend.”

“So what,” Kurt snaps turning to glare at him again. “Who cares?”

“You should!” Sebastian says. “You should care. Because from where I’m standing, you’re better than all of those people put together.”

“And who are you?” Kurt says crossing his arms. “You’re just a sad, lonely man who ran away from his problems.”

Sebastian face falls for a brief moment and then hardens. He walks closer until he and Kurt are mere inches apart. Kurt sees his body shaking with what looks like silent rage. He swallows as he looks up.

“You don’t know anything about me, Kurt.”

“Neither do you.” Kurt says back. They stare at each other for a long time until Kurt walks away in the direction of his apartment without looking back to Sebastian.

It’s not until he gets home that he realizes that Sebastian still has his keys. “Damn it,” he says and hits his hand against the door in frustration. He sighs heavily as he pulls out his phone to send Sebastian a text when the lock clicks and the door opens. Blaine looks at him suspiciously and then pokes his head out to look up and down the hallway.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

“Um,” Kurt says and points randomly at the elevator, like that should explain it all. Blaine just sighs.

“Another long night with Rachel and Jesse then,” Blaine says as he holds the door open for him. “Why am I not surprised?”

Kurt walks inside without comment and heads straight for their bedroom. “What made you guys change locations?” Blaine asks, following Kurt into the master suite.

“Huh?” Kurt says distractedly as he clumsily prepares for his nightly skin care routine.

“The wine glasses and the popcorn. You and Rach started here or something?”

“Oh yeah,” Kurt says as he turns on the water. “Sure.”

Blaine just grunts and turns to leave, “Maybe clean up next time,” He says before he closes the door. Kurt glares at the closed door, and suddenly doesn’t feel bad for the lie.

+

Kurt wakes up to an onslaught of missed calls and text messages in varying stages of panic from Rachel and Jesse. Kurt pulls back the covers frantically and ignores the roll in his stomach. He is never drinking with any of them every again. He can’t help the noise he makes as he hastily gets ready to leave.

“Kurt,” Blaine groans from the bed as Kurt nearly knocks over the shoe rack. “Shh!”

Kurt glares at him and bites back a grimace as pain blossoms behind his eyes. “I’ll remember to be this understanding when you’re getting ready for work next time,” Kurt says and makes sure to slam both the bedroom and front door behind him. The satisfaction of a proper storm-out is well worth the surge of pain it causes in his head.

+

“What is the big disaster,” Kurt says when the door to Rachel and Jesse’s apartment opens. He straightens a little bit when he see’s Sebastian. “You look like shit.”

“You should talk. Plus, I may have let some twink talk me into an extra whiskey shot last night,” Sebastian grumbles as he opens the door wider for him. “Here by the way.”

Kurt snatches the keys being held out for him and continues on to the kitchen where he can smell coffee. There he finds Jesse at his laptop, Esther playing with some crayons in her booster seat and Rachel slumped over in her chair, crying silently.

“What the hell is going on?” Kurt says rushing over to Rachel.

“My body hates me,” she says as she leans into his side and croaks out mournfully. “God damn Tonsils!” Rachel rasps out and hits the table a lot harder than any of them expected. She points at her throat manically, “These bastards have been out to ruin my career since I was sixteen. Now they’ve finally defeated me,” She says and looks mournfully down into her mug of tea.

“I know sweetie,” Jesse says and pats her shoulder as he continues to type with his other hand. “But calm down, you’re scaring Esther.”

Rachel turns to Esther who is looking at her like she just grew a second head from her chair. “Aw honey. I’m sorry. Mommy loves you.” She leans in to kiss her forehead but Jesse pulls her back and stands to move Esther’s chair to the other side of him.

And then fully turns to Rachel. “You’re still contagious for another 29 hours babe, you gotta love her from a distance.”

Rachel points to her daughter and then to herself and starts to cry harder. “You see! They’ve even taken my daughter away from me. My body has betrayed me,” she says and puts her head on the table hard.

Jesse puts his hand on her arm as he continues to look at his computer again.

“Right, so our backers preview is in a week, so we need a temporary replacement,” He says. Rachel cries louder. Kurt sits down next to Rachel and rubs a hand at her back consolingly. Kurt looks up surprised when a mug of coffee is sat in front of him.

“What about Ivy?” Kurt asks as he smiles at Sebastian before he looks back to his coffee.

“Busy.” Jesse says at the same time Rachel croaks out, “Veto.”

They ignore her.

“What about that girl who workshopped your last show, Karen something”

“Touring with-”

“Veto.”

“What was wrong with her?”

“She has flimsy arms,” Rachel says and flails out one of her arms for effect.

Kurt rolls his eyes as Jesse sighs loudly.

“What about Harmony.” Jesse continues

“I think she’s in London,” Kurt mutters as he pulls out his phone to look at his contacts.

“Veto.” Rachel moans.

“I could ask Cassandra-” Jesse starts.

“Ve-To,” Rachel says and punctuates the word with two small hits against the table.

“Who is Cassandra?” Sebastian asks hesitantly. Rachel’s head shoots up and Kurt thinks she only looks mildly crazy - all hope is not lost.

“She’s the soulless automaton that used to sing with Jesse in Vocal Adrenaline. “

“Hey!” Jesse says and points at her. “We can call ourselves that. Not you. We talked about this.”

Rachel just stares at him and then whispers forcefully. “Veto!”

“Oh my god,” Sebastian says, annoyance clear in his tone, and groans into his hands and then looks up. “What about Santana?”

“Sebastian, if you’re not going to be helpful. You can just leave!” Rachel says hotly.

Sebastian scowls but Kurt perks up. “Wait a second.”

“Kurt!” Rachel says, shocked and with and overdramatic look of betrayal. “She tried to take Don’t Rain on my Parade!”

“No, not Santana, but what about someone equally as talented that we know just moved here?” Kurt says. “Marley. Remember her? Blaine mentioned that she moved here not to long ago. Maybe we can get her. From what I remember she’s really good.”

Everyone stares at Rachel. After a minute or so she looks away from them and crosses her arms before she nods reluctantly. Jesses stands quickly and pulls out his phone. “Let me call Blaine before she changes her mind.”

+

The next day, Kurt sits around and lets Rachel mope around him for a few hours, indulging her imagined woes the world has against her. She’s blissfully asleep when he let himself out of the apartment later that day and heads into the studio.

He pauses a little bit when he sees Sebastian sitting at the table. He chances a glance to Jesse who is giving him a pointed look. He sighs and walks over to the table and sits down next to him.

“Hello Sunshine,” Sebastian says dully.

“Hi,” Kurt says quickly. And looks as the group gets back into formation to do the dance number again. “How has it been going here?”

Sebastian looks up and nods. “Good actually. Marley and hot lips work well together.”

“His name is Connor. I hope you speak more highly of the male lead when you’re talking to our investors,” Kurt says.

“I know his name,” Sebastian says. “And I’d be having much better luck if I was pitching _you_ as the lead.”

Kurt stares at him. “What? Sebastian you’re crazy.”

“True, but that has nothing to do with you playing the lead,” Sebastian says. “Besides you and Berry have great chemistry.”

“Well I know a handful of high school critics who would disagree,” Kurt says sourly thinking back to a certain West Side Story audition. “Anyway, Rachel will be better soon and she and Conner work well together.”

Sebastian just hums and goes back to typing on his computer.

Kurt watches the next few routines, making mental notes to bring up with Jesse later.

“Are you free tomorrow night?” Sebastian asks.

Kurt hums distractedly. “Hmm?”

“Are you free tomorrow night?” He repeats.

“Why do you have another voyeuristic friend of yours you’d like to pimp me out to?” Kurt says, his eyes narrowing at one of Connor’s dance moves.

Sebastian laughs next to him and he turns to look at him, surprised by that reaction. “Guess it did kind of seem that way. But no. I have this one last person I want to meet with before the investors preview on Saturday.”

“And why do you need me?”

“Because you, Sunshine,” He says sarcastically before he continues. “Are apparently my lucky charm. So Dinner at the Plaza tomorrow night. 8PM.”

And before Kurt can protest Sebastian’s standing and walking away from the table, “Looking good everyone,” he calls out before walks out the door. Kurt frowns after him and when he looks back he almost screams because Jesse is way closer to him then he thought.

“So I assume things are better between you two?”

“What are you talking about,” Kurt looks back to the door and sighs.

“Because he had your keys yesterday and gave you apology coffee.”

Kurt just stares at him confused. “How?”

“Jesse knows everything,” Jesse says and walks away before Kurt can yell at him.

++

“Hey kiddo,” Burt says happily. Kurt frowns as he stares down at the side of his dad’s face.

“Dad, pull the phone back. It’s a video call,” Kurt says. He can hear Ellie giggle softly. And sure enough when Burt holds the phone out to show the two of them, Ellie has her hand over her mouth trying to stifle her giggles as Burt looks at her and frowns mockingly.

“None of that,” Burt says and pokes her lightly in the side. “Come here and say hi to your old man.”

“Rude,” Kurt says but, he smiles as he watches Ellie climb into Burt’s lap and start to wave. “Hi sweetheart. I miss you!”

“I miss you too, Daddy!” She says excitedly. “Guess what! We’re doing a puzzle today. 100 pieces! Grandpa, show him!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Burt says and turns the camera around in his hands.

“Dad, finger… there we go,” Kurt says when the view of the puzzle clears. “Ohhh, that’s some good puzzling baby girl,” Kurt says and when the phone is turned back around he gives her two thumbs up.

She smiles back and mouths, “100 pieces!”

Kurt laughs. “I’m very proud of you, what else have you guys been up to?”

Ellie goes into a full retelling of her day with Grandpa Burt and Grandma Carol excitedly. She seems to talk nonstop even though she talked to him yesterday. But all the while Kurt nods and asks questions and chides Burt when Ellie lets the secret trip to Wendy’s slip out.

She talks and talks until Carole comes home with bags filled with food for dinner. “Dad I have to go help grandma,” she says somehow managing to sound like she scolding him for something. He laughs it off.

“Oh right of course! Umm,” he says and looks at his watch. Blaine was supposed to be here by now so they could talk to her together.

“Why don’t you have Papa give us a call when he gets in,” Burt supplies helpfully. Kurt smiles gratefully and nods. He looks back at Ellie and smiles. “All right little one you be good. Oh and Uncle Jesse and Aunt Rachel miss you very, very much.”

Ellie smiles “I miss them too. Tell them pleaseeeeee. Kisses!” she says as she hops off of Burt’s lap and runs out of the cameras view.

“How are you son,” Burt asks as he stands and goes into the hallway. Kurt can hear Carol talking to Ellie in the distance and he smiles before he sighs.

“I’m fine. We’re finally getting somewhere with the show.”

“Good. Good. Can’t wait to see it. Even if you aren’t going to be in this one,” Burt says, and it sounds like he’s complaining. Kurt laughs it off.

“No, cause co-writing it is not enough,” Kurt says.

“I just like seeing you on that stage,” Burt says with a shrug. “You worked hard for it.”

“Thanks Dad,” Kurt says softly.

“So, no Blaine again? I don’t think you guys have been on the same call yet,” Burt says, “You two doing okay?”

“Yeah we’re fine,” Kurt says quickly. Burt gives him a look. “What? I said we’re fine.”

“Okay, okay, if you say so. I’m just checking,” Burt says. “I’m going to go pretend to help my two favorite ladies now. Love you, kid.”

“Love you too, Dad.” Kurt says and waves before he disconnects the call. He swipes through immediately to his text messages and text Blaine to asks him where he is.

His text from Blaine goes unanswered, but he gets a steady stream of texts from Rachel with graphic details of her misery, which then leads to him sending screenshots of things to Sebastian and them complaining back and forth about it. He’s completely forgotten that Blaine had not texted him back by the time their bedroom door opens later that night. He’s in his pajamas with his feet propped up mid text to Sebastian when Blaine walks in.

“You look like hell,” he says as he puts the phone aside. Blaine scoffs and walks over to their bathroom. Kurt watches for a minute as Blaine changes out of his clothes. Slowly he gets up and walks to stand behind him. He puts his hands on his back and they slide up to his shoulder as Blaine pulls up his pajama pants. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says softly and he kisses at the back of Blaine’s neck. “You just look a little out of sorts. You feeling okay?”

Blaine sighs and steps away to pick up a t-shirt up from the floor. “I’m fine,” he says and bends over to put it on. “It’s just really busy at work.” He walks back to Kurt and leans in to kiss him quickly before he walks back out to the room.

“Have you been drinking?”

Blaine pauses in getting into bed and straightens up to turn around and look at his husband. “Um, yeah. A couple of the folks from the school went out for drinks and invited me.”

“Oh,” Kurt says and looks at Blaine for a second before he walks back around to his side of the bed and lays down. He picks his phone. “You missed Ellie,” he says softly. Blaine groans as he flops down into the bed.

“Damnit,” He mumbles and looks over at the clock. “Probably too late to call now,” he says and sighs into the pillow. “I’ll call her on my lunch break tomorrow. Cooper said he rescued her again from my parents the other day before she went to Lima.”

Kurt hums noncommittally. Blaine looks over and is instantly annoyed. “Kurt, I said I was sorry,” he snaps.

Kurt looks over at him, surprised, “Actually,” he says slowly. “You said that you’d call her tomorrow.”

Blaine huffs loudly and gets up from the bed. “Fine. I’m sorry I decided to go out with my co-worker and relieve some stress. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to not have a life outside of you. Besides I didn’t feel like coming home to an apartment that’s been once again taken over by you and Jesse and Rachel!”

Kurt puts his phone aside and sits up straight, He learned long ago to pick his battles with his husband, and while finding out who Blaine had really been out with tonight was tempting, the slip up from ‘folks from work’ had not gotten past him, there was something a little more pressing he wanted to talk about.

“Blaine,” He says calmly, choosing his words carefully. “What’s this about? What’s it really about? And actually we haven’t been coming here since they all live closer to--”

“You know what? I’m not doing this tonight. I’m not going to let you throw the moving thing in my face again,” he says and lies back down. He pulls the blanket up to cover him and reaches over to turn out the light, dousing the room in darkness.

Kurt sits there for a few seconds, in silence before he slowly stands and walks out of the room. He sighs as he sits down on the couch and closes his eyes as he replays the last few minutes in his head. Going over and over pieces of dialogue and wishes he could go back and say something to fix it. Maybe say something in his defense. He’s not sure how he always ends up the bad guy in situations like this, and he’s not sure when he’d given up on defending himself. Lost in his own thoughts and emotions, and so confused, Kurt falls into a fitful sleep.

The next morning Kurt wakes up early and quietly gets dressed as Blaine sleeps. He’s surprised when he gets to the studio and Sebastian is already there.

“What are you doing here so early,” Kurt asks.

Sebastian shrugs as he continues to type from his computer. “It’s quiet here,” he says and then pauses and looks at Kurt. “Plus I don’t think I like working at home so much. I’m so used to dreading any work that I might have to bring home, I haven’t yet gotten out of the mentality of avoiding it.”

Kurt frowns, a little shocked by the willingness of that offered information, and adds it to the growing oddities about the man he’s collecting and settles in next to him. They work in contented silence for a few hours before an irritated Jesse walks in.

“No Rachel?” Kurt asks.

“No, I finally convinced her to rest,” Jesse says as he sits down his bag on the table.

“Horse tranqs I gave you work?” Sebastian says as he crosses something off in his notebook.

“Like a charm,” Jesse says as he pulls some sheet music out of his bag.

“I’m joking,” Sebastian says at Kurt’s glare.

Kurt rolls his eyes, “When is Marley getting here?”

“I’m here! Sorry, am I late?” Marley says as she sprints into the room.

“Nope, you’re perfect.” Jesse says and guides her over to the table, “We’re actually running a bit behind schedule so you can breathe easy for a while.”

“Oh good,” she says and sighs in relief. She turns to Kurt and smiles, “By the way, Kurt. Please tell Blaine I owe him.”

“You can tell him yourself.”

They all turn to see Blaine walking into the studio. Marley squeals excitedly and runs over to him. Blaine laughs as he hugs her, picking her up a little and giving her a small spin. Beside him Sebastian’s phone starts to ring, and he stands and walks to the corner to answer.

“Hey Marley,” Jesse says looking down at his watch. “Let’s actually go over your solo. Hey Blaine.”

Blaine and Marley exchange one more hug before she walks away to stand next to the piano.

Kurt finds sudden interest in the spreadsheet next to Sebastian’s computer and doesn’t look his way when Blaine pulls the chair out next to Kurt and sits.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“Hi,” Kurt says quickly and flips to the next page of the spreadsheet.

Blaine takes a deep breath next to him and Kurt tenses. “I wanted to say I’m sorry for last night,” he starts and Kurt looks over at him. “I was… I was upset. I’m just stressed about some things, and I just felt like I was being attacked.”

“Blaine I wasn’t attacking you. I just asked—“

“I know, I know. That’s just how I felt, Kurt. I said I’m sorry,” Blaine says half-heartedly.

He puts his hands at Kurt’s thigh and rubs a slow line up his leg as he leans in to slowly kiss him. “Hmmm,” he says against his lips. “I’ll make it up to you tonight. I’ll cook dinner. We only have a few more nights before Ellie comes home.”

“I can’t. We’re having dinner with a potential investor tonight.” Kurt says sadly and then perks up. “You should come!”

But Blaine is already shaking his head and pulling away.

“No you go ahead. I just remembered actually that David is having a poker night. Promised him I’d come this time.”

“Oh,” Kurt says as Blaine stands and turns to walk out. “Oh, okay. Well I guess I’ll see you at home?”

Blaine turns to look over his shoulder and wave and pauses, a look of confusion on his face. Kurt is about to ask what’s wrong, when Sebastian comes back to the table and writes something down on his note pad.

“Alright, sounds good. We’ll see you on Saturday,” Sebastian says and then throws his phone down and looks at Blaine.  “What’s up, Killer?” Kurt bristles at the nickname.

“Sebastian?” Blaine says, shock evident in his voice. “What are you doing here, man?”

“I work here! I’m the producer on this show. Didn’t Kurt tell you?” Sebastian says as he walks over to give Blaine a hug.

“No,” Blaine says slowly and looks over at Kurt. “No, he didn’t”

“Listen, I have to run.” Sebastian says and walks over to the table. He starts to collect his items and puts them in the bag. “Tell Jesse I’ll give him a call later,” He says to Kurt before he turns back to Blaine.  But I want to catch up. You’re coming to dinner tonight, right?”

“He can’t actually. He has-” Kurt starts.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Blaine says over him.

Sebastian takes a second to look confused between Kurt and Blaine and then nods slowly. “Cool, well I’ll see you then.”

“I’m actually leaving so I’ll walk you out,” Blaine says and walks towards the door and past him. Sebastian looks back and almost seems to hesitate before following. Kurt stares behind them, fuming.

His bad mood doesn’t go away after a few minutes. In fact he spends most of the afternoon snapping at anyone who bothers him until Jesse kicks him out.

He goes to see Rachel who is still upset about not being able to perform and lets Kurt complain about the whole thing. By the time its time for dinner he’s worked himself into a fit. Convinced that Sebastian is going to get Blaine to leave him, and that the beginnings of friendship that he thought were starting to form between he and Sebastian, was all an elaborate ruse to get to Blaine.

He’s a little late and he walks into the dinning area to see them all laughing, and Blaine is leaning towards Sebastian. Kurt glares until Sebastian catches his attention and waves him over.

Sebastian stands as Kurt comes closer and gestures to a woman sitting next to him.

“Kurt, this is Bernice Duval,” Sebastian says. He turns to an older lady and smiles. “Bernice this is the one I was telling you about. This is Kurt Hummel.” He says in French. She smiles and extends her hand. Kurt grabs it lightly and bends down to kiss it softly.

“It’s an absolute delight to meet you Ms. Duval.” He says in French that he knows is flawless. Sebastian gives him an approving nod behind her, and Kurt quells the urge to roll his eyes at him.

“The pleasure is mine,” she replies and then gives Sebastian a knowing look.

As Kurt settles in the conversation picks back up.

“And so Blaine shows up out of nowhere and we see him and the, um, blond one run away with our trophy!” Sebastian finishes.

“We had some good times,” Blaine says and then looks at Sebastian a little wistfully.

“Yeah as much fun as we could, being hormonal teenagers,” Sebastian says and looks over to Kurt, smiling.

“Did you all know each other back then,” Bernice asks.

Sebastian smiles and shakes his head. “Jesse and I met through Aunt Eileen, but Kurt and Blaine both went to Dalton the year before me,” Sebastian says and looks down at his phone that has started to buzz on the table. “Bernice, I’m so sorry. Jesse we need to take this. Excuse us.”

They leave the table and Blaine leans over to Kurt and whispers, “Probably not a good idea to be late to your own dinner meeting don’t you think. Where were you anyway? _And._ When exactly were you going to tell me about Sebastian?”

“Since when did you care anything about my ‘little project,’” Kurt says hotly. Blaine frowns at him and opens his mouth to reply.

“Were you all friends?” Bernice asks suddenly.

Blaine moves back and smiles at her. “Oh yeah. We had loads of fun back in high school. Sebastian’s a great guy. He actually helped me with my proposal to this one.”

Bernice looks from him to Kurt who hopes he’s smiling convincingly.

“Tell me Blaine do you speak French?” She asks in French.

“No he doesn’t but I can translate for you if it’s easier for you to speak,” Kurt says.

“I speak English just fine, Kurt.” Bernice says as she continues to speak in French. “But I find it rather rude to say unflattering things in front of people who can understand what I’m saying. I can tell you in Sebastian have a history, a not-so-friendly one at that, and I’m inclined to blame the small one.”

Kurt chokes on his sip of water. Blaine smiles hesitantly. “What’s she saying?” Blaine asks quietly.

“She likes your bow tie,” Kurt says lamely as Jesse and Sebastian walk back to the table.

It doesn’t take long before Kurt and Sebastian start to bicker at each other and get into a heated argument that makes Bernice laugh at them. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when she agrees to invest in the musical.

“Who am I to deny the world something created by such passion as yours,” she says and points between Kurt and Sebastian.

Kurt doesn’t translate that part either.

When Sebastian comes back into the restaurant, after seeing Bernice to her car, he claps his hands and rubs them together excitedly.

“You’re welcome,” Kurt says dryly.

Sebastian grins. “We’re a good team you and I.”

Before Kurt can comment on anything, Blaine speaks up.

“Hey, Wes and David are still at poker night. You should come by.”

“Blaine. You’re not still going to that are you? It’s pretty late-”

“Lighten up Kurt,” Blaine says to him and then looks back to Sebastian. “What do you say?”

Kurt sighs and looks away.

“Umm I probably shouldn’t,” Sebastian says. “I’ve got some residual energy from closing on Bernice, I think I’m gonna go and draft some emails tonight.”

“Yeah, guys I gotta go too. Rachel’s about to pop a vessel being by herself,” Jesse says and throws some bills on the table. Sebastian and Jesse stand at the same time and Jesse turns and pulls Sebastian into a tight hug. “You were awesome tonight. I was right.”

“About?” Sebastian asks, amused.

“You,” he says and then turns to Kurt, “I told you. I’m always right.”

“Yeah. Tell that to my soufflé set,” Kurt mumbles, which makes Sebastian laugh.

“Kurt, let it go,” Jesse says as he turns to walk away.

“I’m actually gonna walk with him. He’s on the way,” Sebastian says and calls for Jesse to wait.

He turns to Kurt and claps a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re amazing,” he says softly and then turns to Blaine and smiles. “Killer! It was good seeing you.” He leans in to hug Blaine.

“Yeah, totally. We have to get drinks sometime soon,” Blaine says.

“Yeah, yeah. Sure,” Sebastian says and then turns and points at Kurt. “Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

On the ride home Kurt stays silent as Blaine recounts the night telling him how good it was to see Sebastian and how happy he is that he’s back in town.

“I didn’t realize you two were still so close,” Kurt says coolly.

“Well yeah. We chat every once and a while on Facebook, and he was at a few of the Warbler meet-ups. But I haven’t _seen him_ seen him in god… years,” Blaine admits.

Kurt watches Blaine as he continues to talk. The way he lights up at each story he has to tell. And it makes Kurt think.

He hasn’t seen him this happy in years.

+

After dinner with Bernice, Blaine starts coming to rehearsals and team sessions. Kurt doesn’t say anything but Rachel, still technically on vocal rest, notes the difference.

“Blaine's sudden interest doesn’t have anything to do with Sebastian, do you think?” She says one day during a break as they watch Blaine talk excitedly to Sebastian.

“Rachel, no,” Kurt scoffs, “they’re friends. And shh!”

She sticks her tongue out at him and sits back in her chair to sulk.

That weekend, the team goes out to celebrate a successful investors preview, and Blaine of course tags along.

“I’m just so relieved it’s over,” Sebastian groans and rubs his face.

“You weren’t worried, were you?” Kurt asks with a teasing grin.

“Oh no, of course not,” Sebastian says. “After all, I have you to pimp out when necessary.”

“Oh yeah,” Jesse says and points between the two of them. “I saw that Bryant guy there today.”

“He was a little disappointed that it wasn’t you singing this time,” Sebastian says, and gives Kurt a pointed look.

“This time?” Blaine asks.

“Yeah, I went out with Sebastian the other day to help him with and investor,” Kurt explains.

“And he fell in love with him,” Sebastian says. “I thought I was going to have to scrape his jaw off the floor. I mean…Rightfully so. You killed it, Sunshine.”

Kurt rolls his eyes at the nickname and is about to respond but Blaine speaks up.

“Sebastian did you have a lot to do with the casting? I mean apart from Marley. You’re welcome by the way. But yeah it was really good,” Blaine says. “These guys really sell the show,” He continues and winks at Marley.

“Um, no. Not really,” Sebastian says and points to Jesse, Rachel and Kurt, “All these guys. And actually, Kurt suggested Marley.”

“Well you guys knocked it out of the park today,” Blaine says to Marley and Connor. Kurt reaches out for his drink and takes a long sip from it.

“Thanks Blaine,” Marley says and then turns to look at everyone at the table. “I know Rachel is going to be better soon, but I’d love to stay on in the ensemble or as an understudy.”

“We’ll take it under advisement,” Rachel says kindly and bats away Jesse’s hand, currently trying to cover her mouth and keep her from talking, from her face.

“We would love that Marley,” Kurt says and rolls his eyes at his two friends. “You did really well. You both did.”

“Maybe Marley should stay on as the lead then?” Blaine says with a shrug. “I mean since she did so well today. Why change a good thing?”

“Because it’s my part,” Rachel snaps. She looks to Marley apologetically. “I’m sorry. No offense to you Marley. All joking aside you were phenomenal today; we are absolutely lucky to have you. But. It _is_ my part.”

“No of course, Rachel I totally understand,” Marley says, still smiling even with the awkwardness that has settled around the table. She reaches out and puts a hand on Blaine’s arm and smiles at him. He pats her hand and then nod towards the bar.

“Come on you two, a round on me,” Blaine says and walks away with Connor and Marley.

Rachel fidgets in her seat and flips her hair a little nervously. Jesse puts his arms around her and pulls her in close to him and whispers something in her ear. She nods stiffly and reaches out to take a sip from her glass of water. Kurt pats her leg consolingly.

“I’m sorry Rachel,” Kurt says softly.

“Yeah that wasn’t cool,” Sebastian says and reaches out to pat Rachel’s hand.

“It’s fine guys,” Rachel says and smiles at them a little forcefully. “Just awkward, but anyway. We’re not here because of me. We’re here to celebrate this guy!” She points to Sebastian. She lifts up her glass. “To our amazing producer!”

“Oh wait we wanna get in on this,” Blaine says as the three of them make it back to the table. Rachel clears her throat and then looks back to Sebastian.

“Sebastian. We are on the way to the top because of you, and I cannot believe that Kurt doubted you,” Rachel says.

“Hey, what?” Kurt says as they all laugh.

“Welcome to the family Sebastian,” Rachel says and the puts her hand over her throat and turns to Jesse. “Babe, could you do the honors?”

“To Sebastian,” Jesse yells loudly and thrusts his glass in the center of the table.

“To Sebastian,” they all echo.

Sebastian smiles at them all and shakes his head. “Thanks guys, but you guys make it easy. It’s not hard to sell something you believe in.”

“Aw,” Rachel says and leans her head against Kurt’s shoulders.

“The Tony’s don’t hurt though,” Kurt says and smirks.

“Definitely not! Cheers to that,” Sebastian says and then drinks.

“So the show is looking good, financially I mean?” Blaine says. “What’s next?”

“Hiring the rest of the team,” Sebastian says and he looks at Kurt. “We have a few ideas of people to reach out to.”

“Well if there’s anyway I can help, just let me know,” Blaine says. Kurt feels like someone just dumped ice down his back. He slowly turns and looks to Rachel and Jesse who are both sporting equal looks of incredulity.

“Yeah,” Sebastian says. “I’ll let you know.”

“We should have lunch soon because I know a few people that you should reach out to,” Blaine says and pulls out his phone.

“We have a preliminary list, but I’ll let you know if none of those pull through,” Sebastian says and takes another sip of his drink.

“Blaine,” Jesse says. “You seem to have a lot of interest in the show all of a sudden. Why the change?”

Kurt glares at Jesse and he sees him flinch slightly, so he knows Rachel did something to him under the table. Kurt looks at Sebastian and the two of them share a look of mild uneasiness before Kurt looks to Blaine as he starts to speak.

“It’s not sudden,” Blaine scoffs. “Besides why wouldn’t I want to help with something my friends are apart of?”

“Yeah,” Kurt says and pauses to down the rest of his drink. “Why wouldn’t you?” He slams his glass, just unable to deal with it and pushes back from the table. “I’ve got a headache. I’m gonna go.” Kurt says and turns expectantly to Blaine.

“I hope you feel better,” he says and leans over to kiss his cheek, “Text me when you get home.”

“Sure, whatever,” Kurt says and turns to walk away. He thinks he hears someone call after him, but he has to get out of there. He feels like he just saw a completely new person in that bar. He’s so angry he barely registers the ride home, and has to be told twice that they’ve arrived by the cab driver.

Once inside he takes his time in his nightly routine, letting the familiarity of it all calm his frayed nerves. Every few minutes he hears his phone buzz in the other room. No doubt his friends checking in on him. He knew he hadn’t been at all secretive with his anger with Blaine, but he just couldn’t help it.

When Kurt wakes up the next day he’s still alone in bed. He reaches for his phone and checks his messages but none are from Blaine. He clicks through his phone ready to call as he walks out of his room, but just as he’s about to click dial the kitchen light catches his eye. Kurt walks in to find Blaine hunched over a cup of coffee at the island.

“Did you just get in?”

“Jesus,” Blaine says and jumps. He puts his hand over his chest and then groans as he leans his head on the counter top. “Kurt you scared me. And no I, um, slept on the couch.”

“Why?” Kurt asks as he comes further into the room. He walks over to grab a mug from the rack next to the coffee maker.

“Because I got in pretty late and I didn’t want to wake you,” Blaine says, annoyance edging into his voice. “What is with the third degree here?”

“Blaine,” Kurt sighs out. “I was just worried about you. Forgive me for caring.”

“Of course, I’m the bad guy here now.”

“Why is everything a fight with you?” Kurt says, frustrated. He takes a deep breath and walks over to sit at the kitchen table. He sighs, before he starts to speak again, this time a little softer. “Look, I’m sorry it felt like I was making you the bad guy. I didn’t mean to. It’s just been a stressful few days and I’m a bit on edge.”

Blaine doesn’t say anything so Kurt continues. “And actually. I’ve been thinking, maybe we can go upstate in a few days,” Kurt says and takes a sip of his coffee.

“What?” Blaine says.

“Well, I won’t need to be in rehearsals that much,” Kurt says. "Ellie is coming back this weekend and I figured we’d get some alone time in, before the craziness starts,” Kurt trails off at Blaine’s bitter bark of laughter.

“Already penciling me in, huh?”

“Blaine,” Kurt snaps. “I’m trying here. What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t want you to _do_ anything,” Blaine snaps back. “Working on us was not supposed to include scheduled weekends. If you were serious about us you wouldn’t be working on this project.”

“Blaine, if this were you, I’d support you,” Kurt says and feels his anger rising as Blaine rolls his eyes. “ I did support you! When you decided to leave _Who’s Afraid,_ I was there. I was there every step of the way with Hi-Ball. And everything since then too! I supported any show you auditioned for, I supported you when you decided you wanted to start teaching, I even supported you when you moved us out here!” Kurt says starting to yell. “So don’t you dare stand there and tell me I’m not in this.”

“Whatever,” Blaine says and then takes a long sip of his coffee, “I’m not gonna be here for awhile anyway. “I’m doing the summer program at Berkley in two weeks for a few weeks.”

“What? When did this come up,” Kurt says and stands.

“It’s been on the table for a while, but I never thought it was a good time to take it,” Blaine says.

“And you think now is a good time,” Kurt says, his voice rising in volume the angrier he gets. “We’re about to start workshops! Ellie is coming home. Jesus Blaine, we could have sent her to Ohio then instead. Why wouldn’t you tell me about this?”

“The same reason you didn’t tell me about the show,” Blaine says evenly. “And the same reason you didn’t tell me about Sebastian.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Kurt asks. “But since we’re on the subject of Sebastian, let's talk about how he comes into the picture and you’re suddenly all about our show. You just can’t wait to help out. When I have been _practically begging_ you for months to be apart of this.”

“That’s not important,” Blaine dismisses and continues on, “It’s not like they need you to go into the studio. You just said that. You can do rewrites from here.”

“That’s not the point Blaine,” Kurt says. He rubs his face frustrated and then looks back to him. “We’re suppose to talk about things like this.”

“Well now you know how it feels,” Blaine yells and walks away into their bedroom. Kurt closes his eyes as the door slams.

Kurt waits until he hears the sound of the shower running before he goes into the bedroom and quickly changes his clothes in record speed and leaves their apartment. They don’t have rehearsals today, giving the cast a break after the backers preview, so Kurt makes his way over to Rachel and Jesse’s apartment, not bothering to knock and using his spare key.

The apartment is silent when he walks in, and Kurt lets the quiet wash over him as he settles down on the couch. His phone buzzes with an incoming call and when Kurt sees the name on the caller ID he almost throws his phone in frustration. The last person he wants to speak with is of course the person to call him.

“What do you want Sebastian,” Kurt says in lieu of hello.

“I was just checking on you,” Sebastian says slowly. “You left in a hurry last night.”

“I’m fine,” Kurt snaps.

“Okay, you’re angry. Is this about Blaine?”

“What do you think?”

“Okay Kurt, I know what it looks like, but he was so drunk when we were all leaving, he could barely walk,” Sebastian says. “I meant to text you, but Blaine said he did. I swear nothing happened. I made him sleep on the couch.”

“What?” Kurt says, his blood running cold. Rachel comes and sits next to him wrapped in a robe and frowns. “Blaine was with you last night?”

“Yeah, but I swear nothing-"

“Goodbye Sebastian,” Kurt says and hangs up his phone. He tosses it to the coffee table in front of him and sighs as he sinks further into the couch. Rachel reaches out and puts her arms around him to pull him into a tight hug.

“I told you I would regret this,” Kurt says softly. Rachel hums and rubs his back consolingly.

“Do you want to talk about it,” she says softly. Kurt shakes his head and lies there in her arms. He feels all of a sudden exhausted.

“Blaine’s leaving in two weeks for California and he didn’t tell me,” Kurt says quietly. “He also told me he slept on the couch last night. He conveniently forgot to mention that it was Sebastian’s couch. And I just don’t know what to do about anything anymore. It’s like he’s only happy when I’m not.”

“You don’t really think that do you?” Rachel asks. Kurt just shrugs. ”Maybe you just need some time away. Maybe California is a good thing.”

“Yeah maybe,” Kurt says, but he can’t help but feel like this is the beginning of the end.

Kurt keeps his distance from the show for the next couple of weeks. Opting to spend as much to with Ellie, back from her trip to Ohio, and Blaine before he leaves for California. Jeremy, surprisingly, comes by everyday with notes from the days workshop, and Kurt works on the edits once Ellie has gone to bed. He and Blaine barely speak to each other unless they are talking about Ellie or something stupid like groceries. He doesn’t bring up the fact that he knows that Blaine lied about where he was that night, and Blaine doesn’t seem to feel guilty about it either.

Blaine kneels down and pulls Ellie into a tight hug and sways her side to side. Ellie wraps her small arms around his neck and closes her eyes as she hugs her papa. “Do you really have to go?” She says softly.

Blaine pulls back and looks at her and kisses her on the cheek. “It’s only for a few weeks pumpkin, I’ll be back soon.”

“But I just got back home,” she says sadly and looks down at her feet. “Don’t you want to be with me and Daddy?”

“Of course he does Ellie,” Kurt says and bends down behind her. “Papa would love that but, you remember how Daddy has to leave sometimes?”

“To sing for people,” Ellie says and nods as she turns to look at him.

“Mm-hmm, well Papa is going to do that but even better,” he says and pokes her in the side. “He’s going to go teach people how to be better.”

“So they can sing like you and Aunt Rachel,” she says excitedly.

“Even better,” Kurt says again and smiles. “Like Papa,”

Ellie turns back to Blaine and wraps her arms around him again. Blaine pulls her into a tight hug and looks up at Kurt. “Thank you,” he mouths before he pulls away and kisses the top of Ellie’s head.

“Be good for Dad, okay?” Blaine says as he pulls away.  He stands and reaches down to pick up his bags as Kurt reaches for the door to open and hold it for him. Blaine pauses in the doorframe and turns to look at Ellie. “Come here. Give me one more kiss,” he says and leans down to let her kiss him on the cheek. “I love you, Ellie. I’ll call you everyday I promise.”

She nods solemnly and moves to stand next to Kurt. She turns to bury her face into his side and silently starts to cry.  Kurt puts one hand to rub at her back as Blaine frowns down at their daughter.

“She’ll be fine,” Kurt says. Blaine looks up to him and nods and turns to leave and then as if it’s an after thought turns back and leans in to give Kurt a quick peck on the lips.

“I’ll text you when I land,” He says and then turns again to leave.

Kurt sighs and moves to let the door swing close. He looks down to his daughter, whose cries are steadily growing louder and bends down to pick her up.

“Come here, El,” he says and hugs her tight against him. “I’m going to miss him too,” Kurt says more so because he knows it’s the right thing to say to a crying six year old. He lets her cry for a few more minutes, knowing it won’t last long. And sure enough within a few minutes her cries die down. When Kurt looks down at her and kisses her tear stained cheek and sighs. “How about we go see Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jesse at the studio! You get to see the new musical we’ve been working on. Remember that?”

Ellie perks up almost instantly. “Really?” She says hopefully.

“Yeah,” He says and puts her down. “Go put on your shoes and we can pick up lunch along the way.”

“I’m so excited!” Ellie practically screams before she runs down the hallway and into her room. Kurt pulls out his phone to send Rachel a text letting her know they’re coming. Ellie comes back out with a stack of papers clutched to her chest. Kurt looks down at her expectantly, and she sighs. “Daddy, I have to give them the drawings I made for them while I was gone.”

“Oh of course. Don’t you want to put those in your backpack?” Kurt says and grabs his keys out of the bowl. Ellie just looks up and stares at him. “Never mind. How silly of me.”

“Yeah,” Ellie agrees as she laughs and reaches for the door.  Kurt can’t help but laugh with her as he helps her open the door. This, sharing a laugh with his little girl, at least makes him feel right again.

After a stop at the bakery down the street from the studio where Ellie takes nearly as long to pick out her lunch as the commute did, they finally make their way to the studio. They walk in just as the group is finishing a number. And as the final note dies out, Ellie jumps up and down excitedly.

“That was awesome,” she says, a little shrilly.

“30 hour break,” Jesse calls out to the group. “Someone important is here and I don’t want to look at you people anymore.”

He turns and looks at Ellie, who squeals and runs towards him excitedly, only to get halfway and turn back around to carefully hand over her drawings to Kurt. She then sprints back towards Jesse and Rachel who bend down and grab her in a disproportionate group hug. Kurt rolls his eyes a little but smiles and walks over to the table in the corner. He pauses a little bit when he sees Sebastian sitting there, an odd feeling of déjà vu hitting him, before he puts Ellie’s papers down along with their lunch on the table.

“Hi,” Kurt says as he sits next to him.

“Hi,” Sebastian says softly.

“So um, how has it been going?” Kurt asks and then adds quickly. “Here I mean.”

“Great,” Sebastian says as he looks back to his computer. “Looks like we could be headed towards Brooks Atkinson.”

Kurt almost spits out his drink. He turns to look at Sebastian sharply, looking for any signs of a joke. “You’re serious?”

Sebastian just smiles. “Yeah. I’m serious.”

“Wow. Sebastian, that’s great!” Kurt says and puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes it. “Really. I mean that.”

“Well it’s not locked yet, but,” he says and trails off as he looks back to his computer.

Kurt lets his hand fall away and looks back to the group as Jesse calls out. “Ok I was obviously joking everyone get back into formation.”

Ellie comes running over to the table and reaches for her bag of food, “Daddy, can I eat by the piano with Uncle Jesse. Please, please pleaseeeee!”

Kurt laughs and pretends to think about it, watching her hopeful expression turn slightly desperate, before he gives in. “Oh alright, fine,” he says. “But try and stay out of the way,” he calls after when she runs away excitedly.

“She looks a lot like Rachel,” Sebastian says slowly. Kurt looks over to him. “I mean she’s a beautiful kid, I just wasn’t—“

“Rachel was our surrogate,” Kurt says softly and turns back to watch as Rachel sets up a spot for Ellie to sit next to the piano.

“Ah. I see.” Sebastian says. There’s a beat between them before he speaks again. “She has your eyes though.”

When Kurt looks at him this time he has his head back down at his computer, and doesn’t add anything else to the subject.

Kurt watches the group perform for about an hour when Ellie comes over to the table and moves to sit in Kurt’s lap. She leans forward on the table propped up on her elbows when she turns to look at Sebastian.

“Excuse me,” she says and waits for him to look her way. “Who are you?”

Sebastian looks surprised and looks to Kurt first before he turns a little in his seat and puts out a hand for Ellie to shake.

“I’m Sebastian. Hi,” he says and Ellie excitedly sits up, almost head-butting Kurt in the process, and reaches out to shake his hand. "I work with your Dad and Aunt and Uncle.”

“Cool,” she says wonderingly. “I’m Ellie!”

“I know,” Sebastian says and smiles at her. “I’ve heard a lot about you!”

“You did?”

“I did,” Sebastian confirms. “Your Dad here tells me you’re a little performer yourself.”

She nods a little bashfully and leans back to lean against Kurt’s chest. He smiles and kisses the side of her forehead.

“He didn’t tell me that you were such an artist though,” Sebastian says and points over to the stack of drawings she brought with her. “Did you draw those?”

Ellie looks at the papers and then back to Sebastian and nods excitedly.

“Will you show them to me?”

Elli jumps off of Kurt’s lap and runs around his chair to the edge of the table. She carefully gathers up her drawings, god forbid something happens to them, and then walks around the table and climbs into the chair next to Sebastian. She starts to lay out all of the pictures side by side, describing them as she goes. She’s just gotten around to picture number five and is telling Sebastian, in great detail, about the giant dog that licked her face and ate all of her vegetables, when Kurt chimes in.

“Alright El, that’s enough baby. Let Sebastian get back to work. He’s a very busy man,” Kurt says and pats his lap. “Come on let’s finish watching the rehearsal.”

Ellie frowns and nods sadly as she starts to put away her pictures. Sebastian puts a hand on hers to stop her. “These are so good. In fact, I’ve been looking for new artwork for my new apartment,” He says and points down to the colorful dog. “I think one like this will go great with my décor.”

Ellie lights up and nods excitedly and continues to pick up her drawings. As she walks around back to Kurt’s side, he leans over and nudges Sebastian. “Thank you for that.”

Sebastian smiles and shakes his head. “I meant it.”

Before Kurt can say anything else Jesse calls the rehearsal and dismisses the group. He walks over and picks Ellie up and hugs her again. “Esther is going to be so happy to see you!”

“I can’t believe you’ve been here a whole week and we haven’t seen you!” Rachel says as she comes up to join them. Her and Jesse look over to Kurt. And he just rolls his eyes, which makes Ellie giggle. “You two are coming for dinner tonight!” Rachel says with no room for argument.

“Can Sebastian come too?” Ellie asks. Everyone looks over to Sebastian who pauses in packing his shoulder bag.

“Of course he is,” Rachel says and then taps Jesse to put her down. She takes Ellie’s hand. “Now me and you are going to go pick up Esther and then shop for a bit while Daddy works on his edits,” she says the last part giving Kurt a firm look. Kurt waves her off but calls out for Ellie to be good before they walk out.

“Um, Sebastian can you go over the changes with Kurt,” Jesse asks and grabs his bag from the floor. “ I forgot I had a meeting to go to.”

“Oh no, it's fine Jeremy can give them to me,” Kurt says and then looks to Sebastian. “You don’t have to stay.”

“Nope, Jeremy. I need him, umm,” Jesse says and points to the kid and then sighs, “Yeah come on, I guess.”

Kurt stares at Jesse and the stunned Jeremy as they leave and then turns his attention to Sebastian who is also staring, confused, at the closing door.

“What was that?” Kurt asks.

“I have no idea,” Sebastian says and puts his bag back down. “But anyway let's get to it.”

Kurt and Sebastian work on the edits for a couple of hours before Kurt groans in frustration.

“Let’s put a pin in this,” Sebastian says later on. “Let’s hit happy hour before we go over to St. Berry’s.”

“You’ve been hanging out with Jesse too long,” Kurt mutters. Sebastian just laughs and claps his shoulders.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

+

“So Blaine left this morning, huh?” Sebastian asks after they’ve placed their order. Kurt looks up at him suspiciously. “Um, Jesse told me. I haven’t talked to Blaine since that night we all went out.”

Kurt just nods and looks away.

“I bet you’re excited to have Ellie back,” Sebastian says a few minutes later. Kurt just nods and thanks the waitress as she sits his drink down in front of him. Sebastian sighs and takes a sip of his drink.

“Is she a mini Rachel?” Sebastian asks. Kurt gives him a questioning look. “Ellie. Is she just like her.. well Aunt.”

“Not as much as we thought,” Kurt laughs. “Thank goodness. I don’t think even Jesse could deal with two of them.”

Sebastian laughs and nods. “Very true. She’s a sweet kid.”

“Yeah she’s awesome,” Kurt says and rubs his finger round the rim of his glass.

“Are you happy?”

Kurt looks up and stares at Sebastian. “What?”

“Are you happy?”

“Are you?”

Sebastian smiles and looks over at him. “I think I’m getting there.”

+

“What is that smell?” Kurt says as he and Sebastian walk into the apartment several drinks later. Ellie comes running out of the kitchen covered in what Kurt hopes is flour. “Hi you.”

“Daddy!” Ellie says excitedly. “ Dinner is going to be soooo good.”

“Well we can’t wait,” Kurt says and put her hands on his shoulders when she’s about a foot away and turns her around. He loves his daughter but he knows when to pick and choose his fashion battles, and his jeans do not need to succumb to the flour monster a la Ellie. He looks to Sebastian, who is smirking knowingly at him. “These are nice jeans, shut up.”

“You two look happy,” Jesse says coming out of the kitchen holding a beer. “How are those edits?”

“Good. How was your meeting,” Sebastian answers as he crosses his arms, giving Jesse a warning look. Jesse clears his throat and walks back into the kitchen.

“What is going on with him today?” Kurt asks as Jesse retreats.

“Who knows,” Sebastian says quickly. “Alright Teacup, why don’t you show me and your dad how awesome of a cook you are!”

“Teacup?” Ellie asks and then starts to laugh. “You’re silly, Sebastian.”

“Me?” Sebastian says and bends down to pick her up. “You’re the silly one covered in flour, Teacup.”

“Now so are you,” she says and points down to Sebastian’s shirt where she’s rubbed off on him. He looks up from his shirt mock-scandalized, and she starts to giggle. Sebastian sits her down slowly and looks down at his clothes. Ellie points and then shrugs. “Oops.”

“Okay that’s it,” Sebastian says and bends over and starts to tickle her. Kurt crosses his arms and watches as Ellie tries to squirm out of his reach. Sebastian tickles her until she’s breathless from laughter and begging him to please quit. He stops and she leans against him still laughing. “Okay, Teacup. You win.”

“I know!” She says and sticks her tongue out before she runs back into the kitchen. Sebastian laughs as he stands and turns back to Kurt.

“She’s something else,” Sebastian says.

“Yeah, she’s great. So are you,” Kurt says and then clears his throat. “I mean with her. Kids.”

Sebastian nods, “I have two younger sisters. Much younger. So I guess I’m used to it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says and nods his head towards the kitchen. “20 and 19 now. Oh, look at all this!”

Ellie giggles from her spot next to Rachel.

“What do you say Ellie,” Rachel says and points a big spoon in Kurt and Sebastian’s direction. “I say we make them earn their keep.”

Ellie pretends to think it over and then scrunches up her face and points to the dining table. “Table duty!”

“Good choice,” Jesse says.

Kurt rolls his eyes and moves to pull down a few plates from the top shelf. He turns and hands them to Sebastian. “What about you?” He asks Jesse.

“I’m on Esther duty,” he says and points down to an empty spot on the floor. Kurt lifts an eyebrow and Jesse looks down. “Oh shit, hold on,” he says and sits his beer down and rushes out of the room.

“Really Jesse,” Rachel says slamming down her spoon. They all stare at the door and then Kurt turns to keep pulling down dishware.

“Never a dull moment around those two,” Sebastian says as Kurt stakes more dishes on top of him.

“Never,” Ellie chimes in, making them all laugh.

They are all sat down for dinner with a freshly clean Esther, which neither Rachel nor Jesse would elaborate about, and happily discussing their day when Sebastian’s phone rings and he stands to take it.

“Hey Jerry, what’s up man,” he says as he steps out of the kitchen.

“You two seem to be in a good mood,” Jesse says and then a few seconds later he flinches and glares across the table at Rachel. “What?”

“What is going on here?” Kurt asks suspiciously. “Why do you keep--“

“Kurt try the potatoes, Ellie made them,” Rachel says loudly and picks up the bowl and thrusts them at Kurt.

“Okay,” Sebastian says slowly as he comes back into the room. “I have bad news, really bad news and good news. Which one do you want first?”

“Bad news,” Jesse says.

“A pipe burst in the studio space and we can’t rehearse there.”

“What?” all the adults say collectively.

“What’s the really bad news?” Jesse says standing and pulling out his phone.

“We probably won’t be able to get back in there for another two weeks,” Sebastian says.

“Jesus,” Jesse exclaims. “We can’t postpone rehearsals that long.”

“What’s the good news?” Rachel asks wearily.

“Well I think my apartment should be big enough for everyone and it’s near the studio already—“

“Okay we need to get a piano-" Jesse starts already tapping away on his phone.

“Already have one,” Sebastian cuts in.

“And mirrors,” Jesse continues.

“We can probably take the ones off his ceiling,” Kurt says and smirks up at Sebastian.

“You promised you wouldn’t tell,” Sebastian says with a leer.

“What?” Jesse and Rachel say together.

“He’s kidding,” Sebastian says, clearing his throat, and then looks to Jesse. “We need mirrors.”

“Right,” Jesse says and then starts to walk out of the kitchen. “Okay. Sebastian, find us some mirrors. I’ll email the crew.”

“On it,” Sebastian says and puts his phone to his ear and walks out behind Jesse, when he comes back a few seconds later he’s carrying his laptop.

“Well there goes dinner,” Rachel says and puts down her napkins. She looks over at Ellie and frowns. “Why do you look so happy, little one?”

Kurt looks down to Ellie and sure enough she smiling widely at them, “We're going to Sebastian’s house tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Kurt says and shoots Rachel a curious glance. “Why?”

“Daddy, we have to go home now!” She says and hops down from her chair. She runs over to hug Rachel and then to kiss Esther on the cheek.

“Wait, why so fast,” Kurt says even though he standing to follow her.

“Bye Sebastian,” Ellie says loudly and then waves her hand for Kurt to follow. “Come on, Daddy.”

Kurt shakes his head and looks at Rachel. “Do you need help cleaning?”

Rachel waves him off. “I’ll make Jesse and Bas do it,” she says and stands to give him a hug. “You guys be safe. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Kurt bends down to kiss Esther’s forehead and then follows Ellie out of the kitchen, but not before giving Sebastian a small, quick wave.

Ellie talks excitedly the whole way home about the picture she’s going to draw for Sebastian, but by the time they get upstairs she starting to drag her feet. Kurt watches her sleepily get changed into her pajamas and searches through her stack of books until she finds her drawing pad. Kurt pulls back her blanket and she crawls into bed.

“Daddy, will you read to me while I draw?” Ellie asks and rubs at her eyes sleepily.

“Sure, El,” Kurt says and picks a book up from her bedside and turns to the earmarked page. He reads for barely five minutes before her hands slumps against the page. Kurt pulls the notebook from her hands and sits it with the other on her table. He leans over and kisses her forehead gently.

“Goodnight, sweet girl,” Kurt says. He stands and looks over his shoulder one more time before he turns out the light.

+

“This is unexpected,” Kurt says as he looks around the almost vacant living room.

“I know, that’s what I said,” Rachel says as she closes the door behind them. “I asked him if he had moved things around before we got here, you know to make space. And he said “no not really!” She moves to stand in front of him, looking serious. “You don’t think he’s a squatter do you?” She whispers.

“What’s a squatter?” Ellie asks loudly. Making several people turn around to look at them.

“It’s something people do in dirty public bathrooms,” Jesse says as he walks by. Kurt looks down to Ellie and bites back a laugh at the confused look on her face.

Kurt turns back to Rachel and puts a hand on her shoulder to turn her around and continue walking further into the space. “He’s not a squatter, don’t be dramatic Rachel. Maybe he just hasn’t had time to decorate. He hasn’t been here very long.”

“Yeah maybe,” Rachel says, visibly disappointed in the less ostentatious option. They all turn when Jesse calls everyone’s attention to the center of the room.

“All right guys. Come in close, listen up,” Jesse says. “First, thank you everyone for being willing to shift your schedule to accommodate the circumstances. We should be back to our regularly scheduled torture starting tomorrow.” Jesse smiles as a small laughs ripples through the crowd. “But on that note, I’d like to thank Sebastian for letting us invade his personal space for the next few weeks while the studio airs out or drains, I don’t know – anyway thank you Bas. So everyone be respectful and shit, he sort of writes your checks so don’t piss him off. Thanks again everyone, let's take it from Act 2 today.”

The rehearsal goes relatively well. There are minor marking issues, but they get fixed quickly. There’s an added bonus of watching the sun set across the skyline in the background that makes Kurt at ease. Kurt is in the middle of making his final edits to the end of Act One when Jesse calls rehearsal.

“Hey do you want us to take Ellie, so you can finish those,” Rachel says, putting a hand to his shoulder to grab his attention. Kurt is about to object, thinking that Ellie is still a little sore from Blaine’s departure. When she pokes her head around Rachel, seemingly out of nowhere, and looks at them excitedly.

“Sleepover!?” She asks hopefully.

“If Dad says it’s alright,” Rachel says and runs a hand through Ellie’s dark hair. Ellie looks up at him and makes a pleading gesture that makes them both laugh.

“Okay fine, come here,” he says and reaches down to pull her into a hug. “Be good.”

Rachel takes her hand and they say goodbye to Jesse, who is helping put some type of order back to the place, before they leave. Kurt turns his attention back to his work, getting lost in the characters and their world. Once he finishes, he emails the new copy to Rachel, Jesse and Sebastian. He looks up to tell the latter two that, and freezes. He looks around and the room is completely deserted. “Um hello?” He calls out.

“Oh you’re done.”

Kurt turns around just in time to see abs walking his way. Well Sebastian walking his way, while pulling a shirt over his head, but Kurt’s eyes immediately zoom in on the abs and then without his permission tracks his eyes down the rest of Sebastian’s body.

“Sorry,” Sebastian says. Kurt’s eyes snap back up to his face, and finds a look of something like embarrassment. “I’ve been moving shit around all day, and felt gross.”

“No I totally understand. It’s your apartment. You can do whatever you want,” Kurt says, hoping that it really is just that hot in the room and his cheeks aren’t flushed as he turns back to his laptop. “I um, emailed the edits to you guys.”

“Oh great,” Sebastian says and walks into the kitchen. He reaches up and pulls a couple of pint glasses down from a top cabinet. He brings them over to Kurt and looks at him questioningly. “Did you hear me?”

“What?” Kurt startles.

“Do you want a drink?”

“Oh sure,” Kurt says and looks back down at his laptop for lack of something else to do.

“I don’t keep alcohol in the house normally,” Sebastian says as he walks over to the refrigerator. “But I bought some beer incase some of the crew stuck around.” Sebastian says and looks distractedly back at his kitchen for a few seconds before shrugging and lines the bottle's necks against the edge of the counter and opens them up with a forceful hit. He pours the beer into the two glasses and hands one out to Kurt. He holds out his own glass to meet with Kurt’s with a soft _clink_. “Cheers.”

Kurt takes a small sip of the cool liquid and hums as the bitter fizz of it tingles down his throat. They sip for a while in silence; Kurt looking over his work and Sebastian presumably checking his email on his phone.

“Ellie gave me her picture,” Sebastian says as he walks back to the fridge for another beer. He opens it up the same way he did before and pour some more into Kurt’s glass. Kurt looks up to thank him and pauses when he see him reaching to pick up a piece of paper. “I told her I needed a frame for it now.”

“Knowing her, she’ll probably have convinced Jesse or Rachel that it’s of the utmost importance that they get you a frame before rehearsal tomorrow,” Kurt says and laughs. “She’s persuasive, that one.”

“She also asked me why I was a squatter if I didn’t live in a dirty bathroom,” Sebastian says and bites his lip to hold back a laugh. Kurt groans and puts his head on the counter.

“Blame Rachel,” Kurt says, and looks up to laugh. “She apparently thinks that you should have more furniture than you do. But I told her you’ve been busy and stuff.”

Sebastian smiles softly, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. He takes a large gulp of his drink and then reaches for the bottle to refill it. “I thought about hiring someone, but-" He trails off with a shrug.

“What?” Kurt asks softly.

Sebastian looks at him and then away, down at his drink, and takes a deep breath. “It’s stupid.”

“Tell me,” Kurt presses gently.

“It’s just been awhile since I had something that was mine,” Sebastian says. “And it didn’t, still doesn’t feel right to let someone else make it mine for me.” He shakes his head and rubs his face, laughing a little self-consciously. “That probably doesn’t make sense.”

“Then tell me until it does,” Kurt says and closes his laptop. Sebastian frowns and looks at him curiously. Kurt just stares back, open and ready for whatever Sebastian wants to give him.

“I’m,” Sebastian starts and then looks down and shakes his head. “This is really stupid. But I’m just tired of being told how to live,” Sebastian says. “I’m tired of being on ‘trend’, and a part of social groups full of people who expect me to dress a certain way or live a certain way or have a certain type of goddamn wallpaper. “Since I was a kid I had my life planned - perfectly cut out of for me. Ready to join the elite forces of wealthiest Ohio social clubs.” Sebastian says with an eye roll. “I rebelled against that life twice.”

“When?” Kurt asks softly.

“High School,” Sebastian says and smiles grimly down at his glass. “Mother wasn’t too happy about the Glee Club. But my Dad, still riding high on his new marriage indulged me for a couple years.” Sebastian sighs and picks up his glass and continues to look at it. “Then my dad shipped my Stepmom and sisters back to France, got back together with my mother and it was – what did Jesse say earlier – back to your regularly scheduled torture.”

Sebastian pauses to take another gulp of his beer. He grimaces for a second before he wipes his mouth. “My entire life, I’ve always been sure of who I am. I’m a Smythe. I’m going to pick a profession and be the best at it or I’d join the family business, get married have a few kids and keep it going. Even in high school, I was sure of who I was. Albeit a little douchey,” Sebastian admits. Kurt raises a questioning eyebrow. He’s spent a lot of time thinking about the kid he used to know.

“A little?” Kurt asks, just to tease him.

“Shut up,” Sebastian says and laughs good-naturedly. “Anyway, I was the best, and even if I wasn’t I wanted to make sure everyone at least knew that I thought I was?” Sebastian pauses for a second and looks up like he’s lost in thought. After a pause he shakes his head and rubs his hand over his face and shrugs. “I don’t know if I’m making sense.”

“I get it,” Kurt offers. There’s a lull in the conversation as Kurt takes a few more sips of his drink. He can already feel the warmth of a subtle buzz start to settle over his skin and offhandedly wonders when the last time he ate was. Then clears his throat and looks back to Sebastian. “What changed? I mean… You said you used to be so sure.”

Sebastian stares at him for a moment. Kurt feels the rise of goose bumps rise on his skin under the scrutiny and wills himself not to fidget. “I looked in the mirror one day and realized, I’d spent most of my entire life doing something I hated.

“So I started drinking more,” he says and then looks down at his drink. “Hence not keeping alcohol in my house.” He laughs a little awkwardly and continues to look down at his drink. Kurt thinks back to all of the times they’ve gone out with the group. He hadn’t noticed it before but thinks back to how Sebastian will nurse one drink in the time it takes he or Jesse and sometimes Rachel to go through 2 or 3, and then he’ll normally switch to water.

“So I started just looking for any distraction that I could,” he continues, bringing Kurt back to the present. “Just basically wasting away in between business hours.” Kurt tries to imagine what this life was like for Sebastian, and then realizes with stunning clarity that he doesn’t have to imagine to hard. He too knows what’s like to live to other people's expectations and cater to other people's lives.

“Why did you quit?” Kurt asks.

“I was just so unhappy. Even after I got the promotion to CFO. I could tell that I was going to just hate it – even more so than I did before. And it was the realization... This, I don’t know, epiphany that I had, knowing I had just spent the last 10 years of my life working towards a job the I absolutely despised.” Sebastian says and runs a hand through his hair. When he moves to pick up his glass, Kurt thinks he sees his fingers shakes slightly. “I started to spiral. Like I said, drinking more, anti depressants, constant one night stands,” he says and then looks up sharply at Kurt, almost like he’s gaging his reaction. But oddly enough, Kurt doesn’t feel a sense of judgment towards him, not like the kind he would have years ago, hell even months ago.  

“Why did you come to New York?” Kurt asks.

“I came back for my brother’s wedding,” Sebastian says and then sighs. “Then I got cornered by Aunt Eileen, who actually did threaten to cut me out of her will.” Sebastian laughs softly. He lifts his drink to his mouth and hesitates before he takes another sip..

“She told me about this new project she was investing in, and started going on about how she thought I should be the producer on it yada, yada,” Sebastian says with a roll of his eye. “I told her that I was interested because that’s what you do for crazy old people to get them out your face.” He laughs a little and backs up a little when Kurt swats at him for calling Eileen old.

“Anyway,” Sebastian says when he comes to lean on the table. “She sent me one of the early drafts that night and I’m not gonna lie, I almost shit myself when I saw who it was written by.”

He tilts his head as he looks up at Kurt and smiles, which for some reason makes his stomach jump nervously. “Surely it couldn’t be _the_ Kurt Hummel and Rachel Berry. For a good second I thought my crazy aunt had pulled one on me, but Google put my brain to rest.

“But anyway,” Sebastian says “I couldn’t put it down. For the first time in years I’d seen something that truly inspired me to do… something more?”

Sebastian shakes his head self-deprecatingly. “I don’t know if any of this makes sense.”

“It does,” Kurt hurries to say and then reaches out to put his hand over Sebastian’s, “It means a lot that you’re telling me this.”

Kurt sighs and reaches for his glass to take a sip of his drink just trying to buy him time as he builds the courage to say what he wants to next. Admitting his faults has never been one of his strongest features. After he’s done he turns back to Sebastian and takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry I said all those horrible things to you a few months ago.  The whole miserable and lonely thing,” he adds in a mumble at the look of confusion on Sebastian’s face. Kurt’s hearts stutters as he watches Sebastian think for a minute, his forehead creasing with a frown before it clears and he smiles back to Kurt.

“Ah no worries, I was miserable and lonely.”

“And now?”

Sebastian looks down at Kurt’s hand still over his and slowly turns his hand over so that they’re palm to palm. He links their fingers and lets the thumb slowly caress across Kurt’s skin, and for the second time tonight, goosebumps breakout across Kurt’s skin.

“Now, not so much.” Sebastian says quietly still looking down at their hands.

Kurt smiles and squeezes Sebastian’s hand. “Me either.”

+

They continue like this, sans the heavy drinking, and plus one eager Ellie who does in fact come the next time with a frame and a brand new picture of a messy New York skyline in a big window. Sebastian tells her that he needs some help decorating his apartment and hands her a stack of sticky notes and furniture and décor magazines for her to pick out what she likes.

“Be prepared for a lot of yellow,” Kurt says after he overhears this conversation. “She’s in a phase.”

Sebastian smirks. “That’s not a problem for me, Sunshine,” he says and then laughs as Kurt scowls.

Kurt and Ellie come to Sebastian’s house early most days, and Sebastian lets Ellie talk his ear off with all of her ideas about what to do with his apartment. Some days they stay later and the two of them order dinner with Sebastian and hang out, and on one rare occasion cook. Rachel and Jesse join them afterwards sometimes, so Kurt doesn’t feel bad about it and it’s nice to have someone there to distract Ellie from missing Blaine. Kurt has to remind himself a few times that he misses Blaine too.

Kurt mentions Ellie’s minor obsession with Sebastian to Blaine one day after she’s just handed the phone off to him. He expects him to laugh, maybe even make a joke about her getting in line. He doesn’t really expect for the line to go silent.

“Hello,” Kurt says and pulls the phone away for a second to make sure the call isn’t lost.

Blaine huffs out a sigh. “I don’t really think it’s healthy for Ellie to be spending so much time at the studio. She needs to be a normal little kid and go do other things.”

Kurt frowns. “She does do other things,” he says thinking hard for an example in case Blaine asks for one. “We don’t spend that much time there. But she loves it regardless.”

He doesn’t know why he doesn’t remind him that the studio is now Sebastian’s apartment.

Kurt vents out his frustration on a rare night where it’s just Rachel, Jesse and him. Ellie is asleep in her bed and Esther’s out like a light against Jesse’s chest. He tells them all about his conversation with Blaine, all of the half-truths he's told to his husband, and his fear that it's all for nothing.

“I just feel so,” Kurt starts, stabbing moodily at some vegan cheesecake Rachel forced upon them, “Confused? I mean a two months ago all I wanted Blaine to do was care more and pay attention to me and now…”

“You would rather him leave and never come back,” Jesse says. Kurt and Rachel stare at him and he pauses, cheesecake halfway to his mouth. “Oh sorry. I’m projecting again. Carry on.”

Rachel rolls her eyes and looks back to Kurt. “Listen I know it’s frustrating, but you and Blaine will work this out. You always do.”

Kurt nods and takes another hesitant bit of his admittedly tasty, even though healthy, cheesecake, and tries to ignore the fact that he might not want it to ‘work out’ this time.

In the final month leading up to the opening of the show, Sebastian makes Rachel, Connor, Jesse, and Kurt do dog-and-pony shows; little press events, at random times and sometimes exhaustingly so. With the help of the practically brand new assistant Jeremy’s help they all make it out unscathed — Until the day of the show.

Connor comes down on his leg wrong in an early run-through, and Kurt, all the way in the back near the dressing rooms hears the cry of pain. Within minutes he’s being rushed out of the theater and into an ambulance with Jesse and Sebastian, leaving the crew in utter silence and waiting for word of his condition.

Fortunately they don’t have to wait long, just an hour later Jesse and Sebastian walk back into the theater and up to the stage where everyone is still sort of morosely assembled.

“How’s Connor,” Rachel asks, stopping her pacing to rush over along with the rest of the cast and crew. “How’s his leg?”

“It’s broken,” Jesse says and looks at them all. “And we have,” he pauses to look down at his watch and groans. “Less than 6 hours before those curtains open in front of a full house. We’re doomed.”

“Oh my god,” Rachel says on a gasp, putting a hand to her chest. ”It’s going to be the Rachel Berry Project all over again. We’re all ruined!”

“No we’re not,” Sebastian says. And even though he doesn’t yell, doesn’t even lift his voice, Kurt hears him clear across the huddle. He looks up and there eyes meet. Sebastian starts to smile as Kurt starts to shake his head frantically. “Kurt can do it.”

“No,” Kurt says.

“Yes,” Jesse says and grabs Sebastian around the back of his neck and yanks him in to kiss his cheek. “Yes! That’s brilliant. “

“Guys what, no-

“Kurt do you remember what you told me when we broke into the Gershwin Theater!” Rachel says suddenly in front of him and grabs his forearms painfully tight, “Sing. Picture yourself standing in front of a full audience belting out the final song to one of the greatest musicals of all time.”

“Rachel you have the final song, “ Kurt deadpans. “And this is not Wick-“

Rachel grabs him by the front of his shirt. “Kurt I’m trying to be supportive but if you don’t get your butt on that stage tonight I—“

“Okay, easy, Idina,” Sebastian says and squeezes his way in between the two of them and grabs Rachel by her shoulders to help and push her off. He calls over to Jesse, “Dude, come help me.”

Jesse comes over and stands in front of Rachel, before he picks her up and puts her over his shoulder and begins to walk away. The group watches her continue to yell nonsensical things in Kurt’s direction until Jesse rounds the corner. Then they all stare to look at him. Sebastian grabs his hand and pulls him away.

“Come on,” he says as they exit down one of the stairs on the side of the stage. He pulls Kurt behind him all the way to the back of the theater and then sits down in the second seat from the end. Kurt just stares at him, unwilling to be a participant in whatever he’s thinking. Sebastian rolls his eyes and grabs him by his shirtsleeve to make him sit.

They sit there and watch people come and go; the crew walking aimlessly around the stage, not sure if they’re going to be putting on a show tonight, the theatre staff rushing around to set up the reserved seating, completely unaware of the mayhem brewing behind the curtains and in the back row.

Every few minutes, Sebastian fidgets in his seat and turns to Kurt like he’s about to say something. Kurt finally snaps after about 15 minutes of this.

“Spit it out, Sebastian,” Kurt says.

Sebastian looks away and doesn’t say anything for a few seconds longer.

“Kurt, you’ve been putting people before yourself your entire life I bet. I know at least since McKinley,” he says and turns his head to look at him. “Rachel told me about the Diva off.”

“I won that,” Kurt says on instinct.

“I know,” Sebastian says. “The point is you blew it so you could protect your dad. You’re doing the same thing with Blaine.”

“Sebastian, this is not-“

“You’ve turned down almost every major role since Blaine stopped performing,” Sebastian cuts in.

“Stop listening to Jes—“

“Kurt don’t you get it,” Sebastian says turning fully in his seat now. “I didn’t hear that from Jesse. I heard that from your peers, your _admirers_.”

“Sebastian, I get what you’re trying to do,” Kurt says and turns towards him in his seat as well. He runs one of his hands through his hair and sighs heavily, feeling so overwhelmed. “I just- I have to think about my marriage, about Blaine.”

“You’ve been doing that for almost 20 years Kurt,” Sebastian says, a desperate edge creeping into his voice. He holds up one finger. “You left New York the first time for him. You had a co-wedding with yo--”

“We both wanted that!” Kurt tries, but his heart isn’t even in it.

“Kurt," Sebastian sighs giving him an unimpressed look. “Don’t try to tell me you didn’t have elaborate plans for your wedding day when you were younger.”

Kurt looks away and picks at a spot of frayed fabric on the chair in front of him. “There might have been a few wedding magazines,” he mumbles.

“Yeah right,” Sebastian scoffs. Kurt looks back to him when he feels his hand rest on top of his own. Sebastian squeezes it tightly. “If Blaine came in here right now and asked to step in for Connor, you would move through hell to make it happen.”

Sebastian let’s go of his hand and moves a hand to the back of Kurt’s neck and leans in a bit. They just stare at each other for a while. Sebastian’s thumb runs a soothing pattern into his skin. Kurt closes his eyes and leans into the touch. Sebastian responds by leaning in and resting his head against his.

“Please stop,” Kurt whispers. He moves his hand to wrap around Sebastian’s wrist and squeezes tightly. He doesn’t pull it away, he’s not sure he even wants to, but it felt like he should say it.

“Kurt, you deserve more… more,” Sebastian says and huffs out an annoyed sigh. “Than that hobbit.”

“That hobbit is supposed to be your friend,” Kurt mutters. He shifts a little in his seat and his face moves closer to Sebastian’s. He can feel his heart rate start to pick up, and he can’t help but let his eyes trail down to his lips.

“No, we’re not friends,” Sebastian says, a little breathlessly. “Friends don’t— Friends don’t do a lot of things that we’ve done to each other.”

“What does that mean?”

Sebastian pulls away then, and takes a deep breath. Kurt shivers at the sudden chill against his skin, wants to reach out and grab Sebastian, to bring him close again, but doesn’t. He just wraps his arms around himself and sighs. “Why do you care so much about this?” Kurt asks.

“Because,” Sebastian starts, but then stops. He looks up to the stage and points to a group of crew members adjusting one of the props on stage. “Because they worked hard on that set,” he says and then reaches in his pocket and opens up to a picture of the ensemble singing and leans over to show it to Kurt. “And some of them quit their jobs to be here.” He swipes through a few more pictures, past some that oddly enough look like Ellie’s drawings, and settles on one with the four of them at the bar. They’re all practically on top of each other, trying to get into the picture. Rachel actually is on top of Jesse, sitting in his lap and leaned in close behind Kurt. Sebastian is leaning back against Kurt’s chest, and just at the edge of the photo, you can see where Kurt’s arm is wrapped around Sebastian’s middle and resting on his stomach.

“And these people,” Sebastian says. “They’ve worked so hard for the last few months on something they really love.”

He pulls his phone away and puts it in his pocket and then looks back to Kurt. “So if I can’t convince you to do it for yourself. Do it for all of them,” he says and gestures at the stage. He hesitates for a second and looks back to Kurt, and Kurt swears there’s a glimmer of tears in his eyes. “Do it for all of us.”

Kurt just stares at him, searching for some sign of an unspoken message. He can hear his heart beating in his ears, as his blood pumps fast in his veins. When it all becomes too much, he looks out to the stage and for a second let’s himself imagine it. His hand in Rachel’s as they take a bow in front of a sold out crowd. The whoops and hollers from his dad, somehow heard over the en masse cheers of the audience.

Kurt turns Sebastian and nods, exhaling shakily. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Sebastian smiles then, and reaches out to squeeze his hand. “Then let’s get to it, Sunshine.”

After that, it’s a whirlwind of fittings, and hasty rehearsals. Rachel looks like she’s at her breaking point, ready to completely unhinge while Jesse takes to barking orders at people and making poor Jeremy get him a cup of coffee at exactly 185 degrees and makes him take it back three times. Meanwhile, Sebastian, oddly enough is putting out the fires the two of them are causing, once again proving to Kurt even after all this time he really was the right man for the job.

At 10 minutes before curtain call, Jesse calls them all into a group, “Alright guys listen up,” Jesse says and slowly looks around the group. “I may not be able to remember all of your names on even a good day, but I still consider you part of my family. Please don’t disappoint me. I will ruin you.”

“Okay,” Sebastian says pushing Jesse out of the way. “He doesn’t mean that. It’s been a crazy day. A stressful day, but in true Broadway fashion, the show must go on. And thanks to Kurt, it will.” Sebastian looks over to him for a second, and the knots already in his stomach start to form figure eights. Sebastian looks back around the group. “We’ve all worked hard to be here, and been through so much: tonsillitis, ruined rehearsals, broken water pipes and now broken bones. It’s time that it all paid off. Even if tonight completely flops, and we fail miserably. At least let’s give them something to talk about.”

“Break a leg everyone!” Rachel says excitedly and then pauses. “Theoretically.”

Some of the members of the group laugh as they disperse and move to their positions. Rachel grabs Kurt’s hand just as he’s about to get into position and pulls him off to the side.

“I’m sorry I was a little aggressive with you earlier,” Rachel says and straightens out a crease on Kurt’s jacket. Kurt glares at her. “Ok fine. I’m sorry I attacked you. But Kurt, we’ve been dreaming of sharing that stage forever. Connor’s great. But there’s no one I’d rather be on that stage with tonight. Not Blaine, Not Jesse. My best friend,” she says and puts a hand on his chest, “My soul mate,” she says, her voice cracking.

“I love you,” Kurt whispers.

“I love you more,” Rachel says and pulls him into a hug. When she pulls back she’s blinking away tears and giving him a determined look. “Let’s show ‘em how we do it in Lima… well let’s not but-"

“I get it, Rachel,” Kurt says and pushes her towards her spot as the lights begin to flicker announcing the show is about to start.

Kurt feels the pre-show jitters start to ramp up in full force and takes a huge, deep calming breath. He can barely hear the announcer over the rush of blood in his ears. Suddenly the lights dim and the curtain slowly starts to open.

He makes eye contact with Rachel, who sends him a wink, before the music starts and she walks out to her mark and starts to sing.  For a second he’s lost in the moment, caught in the notion that it’s finally here, their musical, their baby, their story. And with that thought he strides out onto stage, turns to the crowd and bears his heart for the world to see.

 

+

His ears are still ringing after curtain call is over. He’s being hugged from so many different directions he can hardly tell who’s who. Jesse is yelling “great job” to everybody and trying to disentangle Rachel from Kurt’s side long enough to bend down and kiss her. Sebastian reaches for Kurt’s hand and pulls him from the huddle of people. He takes him further backstage to where the dressing rooms are and pushes Kurt's open to yank him inside.

“Ow,” Kurt has time to say before he is being crowded against the door.

“Sorry, I’m excited,” Sebastian says and smiles slowly. “You were fucking incredible, Sunshine.”

“Thank you,” Kurt says softly.

Sebastian leans in close and puts both of his hands on Kurt’s cheeks. “Earlier you asked me two things that I didn’t answer. Why I cared that you did this and… and what I meant about not being friends with Blaine.”

“Sebas—“ Kurt starts his breath catching.

“It’s because I’m falling in love with you,” Sebastian says. “And I’ve spent every waking moment for the past two months trying to convince myself that I’m not, but I am and –“

Kurt cuts him off with the press of lips against his. He can feel Sebastian’s shock in the stiffness of his body against his and starts to pull back but doesn’t get very far before Sebastian surges back in and kisses him with enthusiasm. Kurt melts in his hand and wraps his arms around Sebastian’s back and pulls him in close. He moans at the first swipe of tongue past his lips, and tilts his head back to grant Sebastian more access. Sebastian tugs on the back of his hair, making him feel needy with want and he groans against Sebastian's lips. When they pull apart for air Sebastian smiles at him, and it sets Kurt’s heart alight with affection for this man.

“We should be getting ready for the after party,” Kurt says and moves his hands up Sebastian’s back as he leans in to give him another quick kiss.

Sebastian grunts, “So I can watch Jesse and Rachel get drunk and sing ‘Hello’ to each other for the 100th time? No thanks. What is with that song by the wa—“

Kurt kisses him again, letting himself get lost in the feeling of it. He wants to commit every second of this to memory; the way he has to lean his head back a little because of the height difference, the warmth of Sebastian’s fingertips on the back of his neck, the firm press of his lips against his jaw as he pulls away and starts to trail kisses down. Sebastian moves his hands to Kurt’s waist and pulls him flush against his erection. Sebastian leans forward and catches his lips again just in time to swallow his moan, and Kurt wants to live in this moment forever.

There’s a series of loud and excited knocks behind him, making them startle and jump apart from each other.

“Kurt!” Rachel says excitedly and tries to push open the door. “What are you doing? Why can’t I come in?”

“I’m changing!” Kurt yells through the door and reaches down to lock it.

Rachel sighs, “Well hurry up there are so many people here to see us!” She squeals excitedly. He can hear her voice a few seconds later further down the hallway and sags in relief against the door.

When Kurt looks to Sebastian, he’s staring at him from across the dressing room.

“Your family is out there,” He says and looks down. “Your husband is out there. You should go.”

“Sebastian—“

“God. I’m such a fucking idiot,” Sebastian says and turns to bang his hand on the vanity behind him. Kurt moves and turns him back around.

“You’re not,” Kurt says and leans in to kiss him again, but Sebastian moves away.

“I should go,” he says and steps around Kurt.

“Sebastian, wait,” Kurt says and tries to stop him, but he’s already unlocking it and swinging it open revealing Kurt’s family, Blaine hand posed to knock. His eyes dart from Sebastian to Kurt and narrows with suspicion, but before he can say anything Ellie rushes forward into the room to hug Kurt.

Kurt bends down and picks her up, hugging her tightly against his chest.

“Daddy you were amazing!” she says, awe obvious in her voice.

“Yeah?” Kurt says and pulls back a little to look at her, “You think so?”

She nods her head vigorously and Kurt smiles and hugs her again. Over her shoulder he’s able to see Sebastian give him one more fleeting look before he disappears out the room. Kurt closes his eyes for a second and gives Ellie another tight squeeze before he puts her down.

“I guess we have another one to add to the list of things you don’t tell me about,” Blaine says as he walks into the dressing room.

“Blaine it all happened so fast I—“

Why was Sebastian in here with you alone,” Blaine cuts in.

Kurt just stares at him as he feels his anger starts to pulse through him. “Really. That’s the thing you say to me right now.”

“Are you going to answer?” Blaine asks. He crosses his arms and gives Kurt a hard look. They stare at each other for several long minutes.

“No,” Kurt says simply and goes over to his wardrobe and starts to grab his change of clothes for tonight.

“What do you mean no,” Blaine snaps, his anger rising.

“I mean no,” Kurt says and walks back towards him. He holds out his hand for Ellie’s. “Because I am going to go out there and celebrate something amazing that I was apart of, that I did, with the people who I love. You can make the choice if you’re going to be there or not.”

Kurt walks past him then out the door, and almost bumps into Jesse and Rachel who have obviously listening at the door.

“Uh,” Jesse says and then points down to Rachel. “All her idea.”

She turns in hits him in the chest and then smiles down to Ellie, “El how about we go find Esther and Grandpa Burt, and Grandpa Leroy, And Grandpa …” and the list trails off as they walk away.

“You should go change,” Jesse says and puts a hand on Kurt's shoulder, giving him a little nudge. “Lot’s of people waiting to see you.”

Kurt nods and walks down the hall, smiling and thanking people who approach him as he walks, until he finds a vacant room to change in. Only then does it start to set in what tonight really means for him. All of it; the performance, Sebastian’s declaration, the kiss, Blaine’s attitude and Kurt’s reaction. Numbly, he get’s dressed, letting each layer act as a piece of armor that he needs for what’s to come.

+

Kurt unlocks the door to his apartment and isn’t really surprised by the lights turned on throughout. He hadn’t expected Blaine to be asleep. He hadn’t even hoped that Blaine was asleep. Oddly enough he feels at ease with himself. In this moment, he’s perfectly clear on what he wants and what he doesn’t.

He walks further into the apartment and finds Blaine sitting on their bed, still dressed in the clothes he wore to the show. “Where’s Ellie,” he asks quietly.

“She’s with my parents,” Kurt says softly and leans against the doorframe. “Everyone missed you tonight. At the after party.”

Blaine looks up sharply and scoffs. “You made it perfectly clear that I was not wanted there.”

Kurt frowns. “Blaine that’s not true.”

“Just face it, Kurt,” Blaine says and stands and starts to pace towards one side of the room. When he turns, his eyes are glistening with tears. “You don’t love me anymore.”

“I will always love you, Blaine,” Kurt starts.

“Then why are you doing this to me,” Blaine shouts. “Why are you turning me into this person, the role of this evil villain in your perfect life that turned out to be everything you wanted it to be, while I-"

Blaine stops and puts his hands on his head and grabs at his hair. Kurt’s heart aches for him, this man that he would do anything for, and wants to reach out help but resists.

“While I,” Blaine continues. “Have nothing.”

Kurt feels the punch in that statement like a ton of bricks to the heart.  He looks away from Blaine, his vision blurring. He blinks a few times to clear them and then hastily wipes at the tears falling down his cheeks. He takes a deep calming breath. “I didn’t realize Ellie and I were nothing.”

“You see!” Blaine shouts again, there’s a clattering crash of objects and when Kurt looks, Blaine has swiped the contents of the dresser top onto the floor.  “You always twist my words.”

Kurt just shakes his head and sighs, wiping at more tears as they start to fall. He’s completely overwhelmed by things he wants to say. Things that are worth battling for, things he would normally say. He lets the silence grow, as the sound of Blaine's rapid breathing evens out.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Kurt says softly. “I can’t live for your happiness anymore.”

“What does that mean, Kurt,” Blaine says, looking tired, almost exasperated.

“It means I’m leaving,” Kurt says and looks over to Blaine. He meets his eyes as he continues. “I can’t do this.”

“Is it Sebastian?” Blaine asks and Kurt pauses. He wasn’t ready for that question, a question that he’s asked himself. He’s caught in this odd moment of reverse déjà vu and thinks back to the night of their first break up. Blaine told him then that it didn’t matter, when Kurt had asked him if Sebastian was the one he had cheated on him with, but now, in this moment, it matters more than anything.

“Yes.”

+

Kurt can hear the two of them laughing when he let’s himself into Rachel and Jesse’s apartment later. As he walks further into the apartment, he pauses for a second as he watches Jesse spin Rachel in circles, dancing to a tune only they can hear, before he stops and brings her close. He whispers something Kurt can’t hear and then leans down and kisses her. When he looks up he startles a little bit but smiles. “Kurt!”

Rachel turns around quickly and claps excitedly. “What are you doing here?” She turns to look at Jesse. “Did you tell him?”

“I just found out how could I possibly—“

“Tell him, tell him,” Rachel interrupts.

Jesse rolls eyes but smiles at him nonetheless as he puts one arm around Rachel. “I just got a call from Scott, the booker at the theater. The word is out that you’re lead and sales are through the roof.”

Kurt nods, “Wow that’s great.”

Rachel frowns and steps away from Jesse. “Kurt this is amazing.”

“Yeah, why aren’t you more excited?”

“And I love you, but why are you here,” Rachel says and looks back to Jesse. “Why aren’t you with Blaine?”

Kurt looks at the pair of them, anxiety coursing through his veins, and walks past them into the kitchen. He’s already got a bottle of wine and searching for an opener by the time they follow him into the room. Rachel puts a hand over his to stop him.

“Kurt,” she says softly, “Talk to us.”

Kurt takes a deep breath as he puts the bottle down. He rubs his hands over his face and turns to lean against the counter. He looks down at her and smiles sadly. “I’m leaving Blaine.”

“What?” Rachel says.

“You are?” Jesse says, somewhat excitedly.

“Jesse,” Rachel hisses over her shoulder to her husband before addressing Kurt again, “He’s drunk, I’m sorry. But Kurt are you sure?”

“I,” he starts and then pauses, “Tonight was one of the most amazing nights of my life.” He looks at her and smiles. “You were right, we were meant to do that together.”

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m taking that as a yes to you fully taking over the part,” Jesse says.

Rachel ignores him and pulls Kurt’s hand into hers. “I’m always right.”

“Rachel,” Kurt groans.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She says and smiles at him. “Go on.”

“I haven’t felt, like that in years,” Kurt says. “I don’t even think I felt like that on the opening night of Who’s Afraid. And do you know what the first thing Blaine told me? That we had another thing to add to the list of things I didn’t tell him.”

“Kurt,” Rachel says softly and reaches up to wipe a tear from his cheek.  Kurt sighs and wipes away at the others and moves to turn back to the bottle.

“Then when I went home he told me that I had everything, and he had nothing to show for his life. Never mind a loving husband and a beautiful daughter,” Kurt says and starts his search for the bottle opener again.

“Kurt that’s not what he meant,” Rachel protests, “You know he loves Ellie and you.”

“We’re just not enough, I get it,” Kurt says. “And maybe it’s time for me to want more than just enough too.”

“What does that mean,” Rachel says.

Kurt shuts the drawer he’d been looking in with a bit more force than necessary, and sighs. “I kissed Sebastian.”

“What?” Rachel says, “When?”

“After the show,” Kurt says and slumps against the counter again.

“But why?”

“Ugh, I don’t know,” Kurt says suddenly so confused again. “He just grabbed me when I came off stage, and was saying all these amazing and wonderful things and it… It just felt right!”

Kurt looks to his friends and he can feel tears starting to form in his eyes again. “ _I_ felt right. More than I have in a long time.” Kurt groans and puts his hands into his face again and rubs at his eyes. When he looks up at them he sighs. “It’s not like it matters,” Kurt says and shrugs. “Before I could say any of that he took off and avoided me the rest of the night.”

“That make sense,” Jesse says, and when they turn to him, he’s looking thoughtful. ”Yeah, he was acting weird tonight, especially after you left for home.”

“Weird how,” Kurt asks, but Rachel speaks up.

“Kurt, listen,” she says. “I love Sebastian. I do and I know you two have gotten close—“

“I’ll say,” Jesse says.

“But,” Rachel says ignoring him again. “You and Blaine. You’re meant to be together.”

“Okay,” Jesse says. “I have to stop this. I’m having a moment of clarity so listen carefully. Stop listening to what other people want for you.”

Kurt gives him an unimpressed look.

“I mean it,” Jesse says. “If you told me, and honestly meant it, that you didn’t want to do the role anymore. I’d figure it out. I’d respect your decision. But I know you and I know when you being a martyr or whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Jesse,” Rachel starts.

“No, Rach, we’ve watched him go through hell for Blaine over the last 5 years. Watched him put Blaine, hell all of us before himself. And we’ve waited. All of us. Waited for Blaine to show some ounce of gratitude towards Kurt, and he can’t even be happy for him for one night.” Jesse turns back to Kurt. “So I’m going to ask you to answer this. What do you want?”

Kurt takes a moment to think and closes his eyes. He lets him self relive small moments of his life. He thinks to the first time he met Blaine, and waits for familiar feeling of affection to arise, but it doesn’t. Instead the memory is replaced with the first time he met Sebastian. The slowl smirk and the eye crinkling smile makes a small splatter of goose bumps break out against his skin. Kurt thinks about his and Blaine’s first kiss, and then once again his brain switches to the kiss tonight with Sebastian. Shaking the image out of his head, he thinks -hard- about his wedding, and before he can even get far his brain switches to another wedding. The décor, a vision he’d always dreamt about. He takes it all in looking around and spins to find a sole person in the room and down the aisle.

“Sebastian,” he says hoarsely. When he opens his eyes Rachel is smiling sadly at him, a complete contrast to the shit-eating grin on Jesse’s face.

“I thought so,” Rachel says. Jesse squawks.

“You just said he and Blaine belong together.” Jesse says.

“He needed to make sure that Sebastian was the one,” Rachel says and then waves him off.

“I need to go and find him.” Kurt says and starts to head for the door.

“Yes!” Rachel says and Jesse steps in front of him and shakes his head. “No.”

“Jesse!”

“Rachel,” Jesse says and then looks back to Kurt. “Look she’s right and you need to talk to Sebastian.” He rolls his eyes at the small noise of triumph she lets out. “However, we’ve all been drinking tonight, and while I think this is a fantastic idea, you should sleep on it,” Jesse says and squeezes his shoulder. “In the morning, let your heart lead you to the right place.”

+

Kurt knocks on the door early the next day. His stomach is and knots and he keeps imagining the worse possible outcomes of this morning. He has somehow managed to convince himself that he made the whole thing up in his head. The longer he waits on the other side of the door the more he starts to feel like it.

He knocks again, a little louder this time, much closer to a frantic pounding than a civil knock. This time the reply is almost immediate, in the form of a loud clang on the other side of the door, followed by some heavy footsteps approaching.

“What the fuck could you wan-" Sebastian freezes when he sees Kurt standing there. He makes and awkward attempt to cover his bare chest with an arm over his middle and then sighs and seems to forget about it as he runs his hands through his hair and groans.

“You look like you’ve had a rough night,” Kurt says.

Sebastian huffs out a laugh, “Several glasses of whiskey, and half of an unlabeled bottle of what I’m assuming is some kind of moonshine from Bryant will do that to you.”

Sebastian and groans a little and then leans against the doorframe, honestly looking like he needs it for support.  “What can I do for you, Kurt?”

“I think we should talk about wh-"

“I think we did enough of that last night,” Sebastian says and closes his eyes. Kurt almost flinches at the finality in his voice. “You made it very clear for me. So thank you.”

“I left Blaine,” Kurt blurts out, suddenly panicked.

Sebastian jolts up and looks shocked, “What?”

The look suddenly changes to alarm and he turns around and runs down back into the apartment. Kurt catches the door before it closes and walks into the apartment. He looks around at all of the furniture slowly being put back into place from its rehearsal space hiding spot. He pauses at some cans of what looks like yellow paint and his heart beats painfully in his chest when he thinks of the reason it’s there.

Kurt hears the sound of the toilet flushing and follows the sound down the hallway and into Sebastian’s bedroom. He wants to pause and take it all in, but the miserable groan that comes from the bathroom makes him hurry past the beautiful furniture.

He finds Sebastian with his forehead leaning on the toilet seat looking pale and sweaty.

“That is absolutely unsanitary,” Kurt says going for mild nonchalance but probably misses the mark.

Sebastian glares up at him and then winces and closes his eyes, like even that had taken too much effort. “Your fault,” he grumbles.

Kurt looks around and finds a glass on the bathroom counter and puts some water in it. He bends down and puts his hand under Sebastian arm to pull him into a sitting position. Sebastian whines at the movement but gladly accepts a sip of water when Kurt puts the glass to his lips. Kurt makes him slowly drink the entire thing and then stands. He gets a wet towel and bends down again to wipes at the patches of sweat on Sebastian’s forehead.

“What happen Bas?” Kurt asks softly.

Sebastian looks up at him, pain obvious in his eyes. Kurt can’t tell if it’s from being sick or from what he’s about to tell him.

“After you left the party I started drinking because I thought,” he swallows loudly and takes a deep breath, “I thought you were leaving to go and be with Blaine. And I just… Lost it.”

“Bas,” Kurt whispers and leans in to rest his forehead against his. “I should have told you before I left.”

“You knew?” Sebastian says and groans as he closed his eyes. “You knew you were going to end it with Blaine before you left… You are now, more than ever, solely responsible for my current state of almost dying.”

Kurt pulls back to look him in the eye and cups his cheek. He nods once and leans in to kiss Sebastian on the crease between his eyebrows.. He runs his hand through Sebastian hair and moves to sits as Sebastian turns into him, leaning his head onto his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” He puts his arm around Sebastian and holds him close, a little tight, as if he’s afraid to let go. “I think I’ve known for a while now.”

“So what now?” Sebastian asks after sometime, content in the calm of Kurt’s arms.

Kurt sighs and pats Sebastian’s back, signaling for him to ease off a little bit. “Well. You’re gonna brush your teeth so I can kiss you.”

Sebastian huffs out a laugh and then nods.

“I’m going to make us some coffee,” Kurt says and starts to stand. “And we’ll pick up some food before we go to the paint store.”

Sebastian groans as he struggles to his feet. He leans with his hands on the counter and then looks up into the mirror and at Kurt, confusion creasing his brow once more.

“The paint store?” He says and reaches to put some toothpaste on his toothbrush.

Kurt moves to stand behind Sebastian and wraps his arms around him as he slowly starts to brush his teeth, still a little hunched over the sink. Kurt hooks his chin over his shoulder and hums. “Mm hmm,” Kurt idly pats Sebastian stomach as he bends to spit and rinse.

Kurt smiles when Sebastian looks back up at him. Sebastian turns in his arms and hesitantly wraps his arms around Kurt, with this look of mild astonishment, like he can’t believe he can actually do this. Kurt moves in impossibly closer.

“Why the paint store,” Sebastian asks again, letting their foreheads meet once more.

“Because as much as I love you,” he says and pauses, gaging Sebastian’s reaction. He can feel his muscles tense around him as Sebastian takes a calming breath and then smiles as he shakily exhales. Kurt continues. “As true as that may be. I’m not letting you paint this apartment yellow.”

Sebastian starts to laugh and moves to lean his head down on Kurt’s shoulder. Kurt smiles and turns to kiss his neck and when he pulls back, Sebastian cups his cheeks with both hands and leans into kiss him. Kurt sighs happily into it, doesn’t even mind the overwhelming taste of mint.

“If it means I get to do that whenever I want,” Sebastian says and kisses him quickly before he adds. “We can take the paint back, but you have to tell Ellie.”

Kurt rolls his eyes as he steps away, “How will I ever manage that?”

Kurt, as promised goes to make coffee while Sebastian gets dressed, and huffs out a small laugh when Sebastian wonders in some jeans, a white v-neck, and a beanie looking worse for wear. He brightens a little bit when Kurt hands him a mug of coffee. Kurt wanders back to the refrigerator to get some cream. When he turns back and looks at Sebastian, he’s just staring at him, looking a little teary eyed. He puts down the cream and walks around to his side of the counter and puts a hand on his cheek.

“I’m fine," Sebastian says, noting the concerned look on Kurt’s face. He looks away for a second and then puts one hand over Kurt’s at his cheek. “The past 14 hours, minus the 8 or so that I spent insanely drunk and miserable, besides that, have been the best of my life.”

“Oh yeah?” Kurt says, ready to call him a sap.

“I’m with the love of my life,” he looks down at his wrist at an invisible watch. “And we’re going on 30 minutes so I’m feeling pretty hopeful.”

Kurt laughs and pulls away to his coffee but Sebastian catches him around the waist and pulls him back in close. “And I got to watch you do what you were born to do on that stage last night. You were amazing.”

As Kurt leans in to kiss Sebastian, he feels the final piece of his life clicking into place. And for once, he knows what happiness truly feels like.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song The Love You're Given by Jack Garratt -- you're welcome.


End file.
